SIT DOWN, SHUT UP AND STOP YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE.
Forget your balls and grow a pair of tits: Lily Allen has returned to us — and not a moment too soon.
After (mercifully) reversing her momentary retirement from the music industry, returning from Lily Rose Cooper to Lily Allen and launching her official website months ago, the “Fuck You” singer-songwriter has at last returned in the form of “Hard Out Here,” which just premiered on PopJustice.
Basically, the song is everything that a Lily Allen comeback single should be.
Lily’s always been one to deliver the goods with her signature sound, a blend of searing social commentary and innocuous, endlessly catchy pop hooks. (Her 2009 record It’s Not Me, It’s You is, in my opinion, truly a defining soundtrack for a generation raised on the Internet.)
Much in the same way that TLC tackled body image with “Unpretty”, Legendtina and Lil’ Kim took on double standards of gender with “Can’t Hold Us Down” and P!nk satirized pop culture with “Stupid Girls,” Lily’s taking the music industry in 2013 to task — including twerking, Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke, record label execs and everything in between.
From the hysterical opening — as Lily gets back into business with some liposuction (“Um, I had two babies…”), to stunting with big booty video girls, popping bottles and flossing like the HBIC that she is, to the “LILY ALLEN HAS A BAGGY PUSSY” “Blurred Lines” balloon parody — this is exactly the kind of cheeky, mirror-held-to-society response that Lily Allen should make in 2013.
The actual song’s incredible, too! Set atop a bright, jaunty piano melody and kicking drums (with some slight #SomethingMoreUrban dub influences), Lily formally reintroduces herself (and her razor-sharp tongue): “I suppose I should tell you what this bitch is thinking / You’ll find me in the studio and not in the kitchen,” she starts.
Oh God, it’s all so good. “Sometimes it’s hard to find the words to say / I’ll go ahead and say them anyway,” she declares across the bridge, Auto-Tuned beyond belief (on purpose obviously, another clear dig at pop radio). “It’s hard, it’s hard out here for a bitch!”
The song’s chock full of killer lyrics weaved around excellent melodies, including but not limited to:
“I won’t be bragging ’bout my cars or talking ’bout my chains / Don’t need to shake my ass for you, ’cause I’ve got a brain.”
“If I told you ’bout my sex life, you’d call me a slut / When boys be talkin’ ’bout their bitches, no one’s making a fuss.”
“You’re not a size 6 and you’re not good looking / Well, you better be rich or be real good at cooking.”
“Don’t you want to have somebody who objectifies you? Have you thought about your butt? Who’s going to tear it in two?”
“Inequality promises that it’s here to stay / Always trust the injustice ’cause it’s not going away.”
This is a completely brilliant return to form — and beyond that — one of the (new) best songs of the year. Now that’s how you do the damn thing. Lily just saved our sorry pop souls.
You betta work, bitch!
