“If Women Could Take The Reins, They Would Do A Better Job”: Lily Allen On The Business Of Music

A couple of weeks ago, a troll tried to get the better of Lily Allen.

This is hardly new — Allen has been dealing with angry internet dwellers since she emerged on MySpace in 2005 — but this one was particularly personal. They tweeted Allen an upskirt photo that had been taken during a gig in 2014, showing the singer’s vagina.

“This photo will be on the internet forever Lils,” the troll wrote, the smugness practically leaping off the page. Without skipping a beat, Allen responded with this:

It was, in every way, the perfect Allen clap back — and an incredibly appropriate way to plug her fourth album, No Shame. 

As its title suggests, No Shame is the most open and cathartic album Allen has ever made. It’s not the giant ‘FUCK YOU’ to the world that some might expect (although at times it does say that), but rather the record sees Allen dealing with the turmoil that has engulfed her life since before the release of Sheezus four years ago.

Some tracks bluntly examine the breakdown of her marriage (‘Family Man’, ‘What Are You Waiting For’), while others address her anxiety over motherhood (‘Three’) and her troubles with alcohol and drugs. And, of course, there are few blazing cannon balls aimed at her detractors (‘Come On Then’, ‘Waste’).

Most of all, No Shame sees Allen return to the honest and vulnerable songwriting that defined her first two releases, Alright, Still, and It’s Not Me, It’s You — something that was noticeably absent during the troublesome Sheezus period.

Music Junkee spoke to Allen over the phone from London about No Shame, the #MeToo movement, and the unending shitshow that is the music industry machine.

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The making and marketing of Sheezus seemed to have a pretty big impact on you. How did making that album, and the entire process around making it, impact the approach to No Shame?

I just wanted to do the exact polar opposite. From Sheezus’ inception, I just wanted to please everybody, and I didn’t really have a sense of self at the time. I’d just had my second baby and was feeling quite all over the place and having a bit of an identity crisis.

So when I started work on Sheezus, I just did pop by numbers, really. Which was, you know, ‘write some songs that will get on the radio, do some photo shoots for this magazine, do this kind of press, and what are the people in the charts wearing? Wear those clothes.’

“On ‘Sheezus’ I just wanted to please everybody, I didn’t really have a sense of self.”

So it was very much like trying to do stuff for the market, which was a new approach for me. But I wasn’t really focused on my game, you know? And I think you can hear that in the music, and you can definitely see it with all the promo as well. I just wasn’t really there.

So the approach for No Shame was to do the exact opposite and just make sure that it was completely, 100 percent authentic and connected — and that I could sell it. Because I do think that, since 2005 when I first started out, one thing that kind of just always set me apart from everybody else was my authenticity and my honesty.

My fans know who I am, and know the language that I speak, and know my facial expressions — so if it’s not convincing, you can smell it a mile off, you know? That was what I just wanted to achieve with this record, to write the best music and have it as real and honest as it possibly could be. In direct contrast with the last one.

You mentioned you went through an identity crisis. How did you come back from that, and how did you begin writing for No Shame?

Well I began writing pretty soon after a US tour that I was doing, and I should have been going straight home because I’d been away from my family for so long. But I didn’t. I took a lease on a house for a couple of weeks and moved to Santa Monica and got straight to work on this next record.

And the first song that I wrote was called ‘Family Man’, which is about difficulties within my marriage, and the roles in my marriage — which role a man plays and which role a woman plays within our relationship, and where that exists on the traditional spectrum.

It was quite obvious to me where the rest of the album was going to go, as that song was the the first one that came out. And it felt good when it came out. That song shaped the rest of the record, I think.

Did the writing come together pretty quickly? 

God no, it took three years [laughs]. It took about two and a half, three years to write the album. So yeah, it was a long one.

But I mean, with previous albums, I’ve always worked with time constraints with the people that I’ve been working with, so if I had a week long session with somebody, I’d try and get four or five songs done within that week, and then I would never really come back and revisit the vocals or anything. Just because I’ve got ADHD, and I don’t really like going back to things.

But with this album, I leased my own studio in Kings Cross and I would go out and venture out and start ideas with other people, but then I would bring them back to my own space and sit there and think about them for a bit longer. I just took more time and care than I have done previously.

My favourite track on the record is ‘Everything to Feel Something’. It’s also probably the most raw. Can you talk me through the writing of that song, and how it came together?

I used to have a house down in Gloucestershire, and it started at my studio down there. Me and my friend Brian started writing it, and it actually was the longest song to come together. It took about two years to write that song.

“The music industry is incredibly incestuous, and it’s incredibly hard to escape any abusers that might be lingering around.”

The language in it just didn’t feel right for a long time, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. I tend to listen to a lot of my music in the car, because I feel like when my brain is concentrating on the road and trying to drive safely, and I’m not thinking too much about the context of my lyrics and stuff, that’s when things jump out at me as being sort of inauthentic. And I’m not talking about in terms of feeling, but more in terms of language.

It’s quite hard to sort of fit lyrics in and make them rhyme, and fit, and feel correct at the same time. Sometimes it takes a while, and that song was definitely one of them. But yeah, I really love that song. It’s funny that you say it’s one of your favourites because my manager, who helps me with my music, really didn’t want that song to be on the record.

Oh really? Why?

I don’t know. Well I guess maybe because he’s known me since I was really young, so he didn’t really like hearing about me in that context. But also, I don’t know, he just wasn’t into it. But I’m really glad we kept it on because lots of other people have said similar things, that they really like it. Just goes to show, doesn’t it, that you shouldn’t necessarily listen to one person.

The way the album flows, there’s so many emotional peaks and valleys. One second it’s this up-tempo, positive song, and the next second it’s like you’re crying into the microphone. Did you organise the tracklist like that on purpose? Did you kind of want to induce that feeling of emotional turmoil, for want of a better phrase?

I don’t think any of the songs are radio hits, you know? So I guess the fact that I knew that wasn’t the intention behind the record meant that I could sort of play with that — what you’re alluding to there, the feeling — a little bit more.

I want people to listen to this album in its entirety. And so much of the way that albums are shaped now is to do with Spotify, and algorithms, and getting on “chill out” playlists, and whatever. They are constructed within genres, within albums, to make it more of an easy listen, actually.

And I just wanted to do something completely different because I’m weird. But I think that it keeps your attention on it, you know? If it was like, all one feeling at one end, and then one feeling at the other end, then you might sort of zone a little bit.

Being on a major label has been a source of frustration for you in the past. I read that, in the making of Sheezus, you would put forward ideas and they wouldn’t be accepted by your label. Did that change for this record, or is it better now than it was four years ago?

I couldn’t tell you because I just don’t really converse with them, to be honest. I just sort of leave it to my manager. It’s going to be different, because I’m not a number one million selling artist anymore, so there’s always going to be a contrast.

They’re only going spend grotesque amounts of money on doing promotion if they think that they’re going to get grotesque amounts of money back, and I don’t know if they are convinced of that, with me. I guess it’s just adjustment, isn’t it?

Would you prefer to be an independent artist, if you could?

Yes. [Laughs] It’s nothing bad against them. I don’t dislike the people that work at Warner, as human beings and as individuals.

But no one likes having to go and ask their parents for pocket money. You just want to have it in your bank account, don’t you? That’s what it feels like. It’s like, “Please sir, can I have some more?” Yeah, I don’t like that.

Do you think No Shame is your best album? 

Yeah, maybe… yeah. I guess I do.

You’ve spoken a bit about how the #MeToo movement hasn’t yet reached the music industry, for a number of reasons. Do you think it will?

I don’t think it will until there’s union for artists. Like a proper union that works. Because everyone’s too isolated in music. You’re not employed by a record company. You’re not employed by a management company. Everybody’s self employed.

So when something does go wrong, there’s nobody to report it to. On paper, you’re looking after yourself. So even though you’re having to answer to these people, and these people have got control over your future and your career, that’s not how it works. On paper, you’re your own entity.

“I actually think that women are — not better at music — but I think that women are better at emotions.”

And we have contracts for such long periods of time. I think that in TV and film, you’re only contracted until the end of whatever project it is that you’re making, and then there’s a film industry in LA, there’s an industry in New York, there’s an industry in London, there’s an industry in Paris. You can move quite easily, whereas music is so interconnected, and the contracts can last up to 15 years.

So, it’s incredibly incestuous, the music industry, and incredibly hard to escape any abusers that might be lingering around — of which there are many.

It’s nigh on impossible to avoid them because there are only a few events every year worldwide, and a few studios, and a few producers. Now there’s only five record labels. Well, five major labels. But yeah. It’s difficult. It’s a difficult one.

Is that what you dislike most about the business of the music industry, do you think?

I resent how much of a boys club it is, because I actually think that women are, not better at music, but I think that women are better at emotions. At this point in time, I think they are. And music is so much about intuition and emotional connectivity, and I think that if women were given the chance to take the reins, they would do a much better job, actually.

I think that men, especially when dealing with women in music, can only think about women in music in sexual terms.

They’re not really listening to those artists, they’re thinking about how they can market them. It’s very much the lowest common denominator in that sense. I think that if women were given the opportunity to be the decision makers in that process, then things would be a lot more interesting.

And not just the playing field in terms of internally in record companies or in radio stations, but the actual output of music would look very different, and sound very different, and feel very different, and be better actually. That’s what annoys me.

I noticed you and Kacey Musgraves were chatting over Twitter a couple of days ago about potentially writing together. Have you talked any more about it? Because I would be exceptionally excited about that collaboration.

Well we’ve gone back and forth on Twitter, but I think she doesn’t follow me still. I’m going to have to stalk her a little bit more. But yeah, I would love that. I’ve been listening to that album nonstop. I just think she’s such a talent.

And she’s so funny with her lyrics, just brilliant. And I think that we would do some really special shit together. I hope we can figure that out at some point.

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Lily Allen’s new album, No Shame, is out today through Warner Music.

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Jules LeFevre is Junkee’s Music Writer. Follow her on Twitter.