Reviewed on Friday July 25 (photo by Katrina Clarke)
Currently, ABC2 is airing a series called Lily Allen: From Riches To Rags. It’s a documentary about the singer’s fashion business, which she opened with sister Sarah Owen in 2010 when simple pop stardom became too much for her. That wilting enthusiasm for being a recording and touring artist has been a theme of Allen’s life since the release of It’s Not Me, It’s You in 2009, and even though she’s back with Sheezus (and her London clothing store has been closed), the now-mother-of-two is as anti-pop as she ever was.
Or at least that’s what she wants us to think. Allen’s power as a creative voice has always derived from her ability to poke fun at pop; to pass commentary on important issues of womanhood and politics through the musical tools that are so often used for so, so much less. For an anti-pop star, though, Allen’s latest tour sees her pretty darn committed to being pop.
She walks onstage midway through the first verse of ‘Sheezus’, and takes her place among a four-woman dancing troupe – the choreography subtle but sharp. For ‘Hard Out Here’, those dancers wear dog masks as they pivot around the giant infant milk bottles that form much of Allen’s stage and lighting design, and soon enough there’s a first costume change as Allen steps out of her fluoro yellow catsuit and into something even more revealing. The band is tight and the crowd is enthusiastic, even more so when oldies ‘Smile’ and ‘Everyone’s At It’ get a run – and despite the flu Allen says she’s been carrying since Melbourne, her vocals are spot on.
The cynicism and irony that are Allen’s strengths are never far from the surface, but at her worst she dies by her own sword, her least imaginative songs descending into middling pop like anyone else’s. Alas, that’s the story of much of the new album, so there’s a long period through the centre of this set in which the melodies are flat and the lyrics are bare. “Everything’s perfect and I’m as content as can be / This is the life for me,” isn’t quite Cohen.
New single ‘URL Badman’ lifts proceedings, though, backed by an impressive light display, before a cover of Keane’s ‘Somewhere Only We Know’. And nothing tells Allen’s story better than the lacing of perfect bubble gum melodies with the acerbic barbs of ‘Fuck You’. Alongside ‘The Fear’, that’s exactly where Allen hits her target: pop turned against itself to make her the most listenable spokeswoman of her era.
