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It's Not Me, It's You is a wonderful record, and, better than that, a pop album brave enough to have a go at defining the times.
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In this case I've been compelled to return a lot. Weird accomplishment for a pop singer. It's a five-or-six-listens album.
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Though the new stuff doesn't have the immediate sonic dazzle of her debut, Allen hasn't gone fully Eeyore; even her most wounded musings are paired with serious hooks.
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She offsets an assault of cheekiness with confessions so intimate, they could have been drafted during an A.A. meeting.
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It's Not Me never hits heights as blinding as "Smile" or "LDN"--but this approach does wind up spotlighting just how special a pop star Lily Allen is, how she captures all that's wretched and glorious about her time without falling into any of its traps, probably because she's clever enough to avoid them in the first place.
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Q MagazineAllen keeps it reliably real. [Mar 2009, p.92]
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There's an assurance about its adjustments to her musical formula, its contents sing loud enough to drown out even the siren song of the patisserie.
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Greg Kurstin helped deliver everything both artist and mercenary label boss could wish for. Songs that are ultra-modern and instantly accessible, fun but never cheesy, experimental but rarely try-hard.
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It's refreshing how single-minded some of the new songs are, especially when coupled with Allen's lyrical zingers.
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A more mature Allen might not be as much fun, but in the absence of acidity, her sweetness shines through.
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Thanks to Allen's still-sharp lyrical wit and an exceedingly crafty production job by Greg Kurstin, It's Not Me, It's You is hardly the grown-up buzz-kill it might have been.
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Under The RadarSo to sum up, insightful lyrics, great voice, and super production values add up to one of the albums to beat in early 2009. [Winter 2009]
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Still blessed with cleverness, tunes, sass, and youth, she generally pulls it off.
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Allen could’ve easily just rehashed the party-girl anthems of "Alright, Still," but while It’s Not Me, It’s You is as full of toe-tappers as Allen’s debut, the new album also has a big chip on its shoulder. Allen clearly has no intention of being mistaken for anybody else.
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Vaudeville, show-tune theatrics, lonely dance-floor pop and even a smidge of cartoon country give It's Not Me, It's You its clever foundation that references pop culture with the same insatiability as Allen's lyrics.
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While it's hardly a pop renaissance, It's Not Me, It's You is an appropriate follow-up to a debut that peaked not only because of its musical merits but also because of it's cultural catalysts.
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It’s Not Me, It’s You cooks up nostalgia for Allen diehards, but the elements have been shuffled and re-imagined with pulsating dance tracks that are surprisingly fitting.
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For those people who still think Lily Allen is the epitome of nepotistic celebrity culture, her second album won't change many minds. For the rest of us, It's Not Me It's You cements her position as one of this country's most interesting pop stars and proves that she's not some one-hit wonder.
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While there's nothing quite as hugely hooky as Alright singles "Smile" and "lDN," the album feels more confidently complete.
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There's a humility to It's Not Me that was sorely lacking on her debut.
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Even if the new album can be cheaply on-the-nose and opportunistic at times, it's hard to root against Lily Allen.
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It's Not Me, It's You is far from perfect, but it sounds fantastic.
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Much of It's Not Me's bummed-out vibes seem rooted in sound artistic sense, but musically a sunken-eyed pallor has replaced the rosy-cheeked flush and, you know what, it all gets a bit...draggy.
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It’s catchy, it’s energetic, and it makes you move--all plusses in my book. That said, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a record that sounds so much like everything else.
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MojoWhile It's Not Me, It's You isn't quite the voice of wisdom, the Mockney chatter has been dialed right down. [Mar 2009, p.108]
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There's nothing as straight-up enjoyable as 'LDN' or quite as remarkably scathing as 'Smile', but sticking with It’s Not Me, It’s You and penetrating its jarringly slick-meets-Garageband-amateur exterior is wholly advisable. Not perfect by any means, it nevertheless cements Allen’s status as a chronicler of daily existence.
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Yet something needs to be said for Allen’s ability to make cursing seem cute, and tunes about giving head sound charming.
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Her once bubbly pop is now a bubble of isolation: still catchy, still funny, still danceable, but uncomfortably solipsistic, casting an unsparing mirror on a culture that has equated selfishness with power.
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Heavy production, heavy hooks and heavy club-friendly beats are the status quo, everything coming across like someone else’s tampering rather than Allen’s creative doing.
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It’s Not Me It’s You is neither grating or annoying. It’s merely boring.
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Lily’s nonchalant declarations of self-esteem leave me cold. And as soon as she traded generically upbeat ska/reggae samples for a bunch of ho-hum electropop beats, she became indistinguishable from her imitators.
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If once she was sweetly sardonic, now she sounds utterly bored, and collaborator Greg Kurtsin hardly helps with an anodyne synthpop production that makes excruciating excursions into rawhide country, pallid polka and Bontempi showtunes.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 138 out of 166
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Mixed: 9 out of 166
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Negative: 19 out of 166
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Jan 18, 2017
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Dec 26, 2015
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Aug 25, 2015