It's not me, it's you

It's hard to be objective about music.

Sometimes, to obtain a more personal perspective on an album, I like to pretend that I dated the artist in high school and that it ended really, really badly. Like you-continue-to-fuck-her-on-the-sly-for-five-months-after-and-her-parents-catch-you-mid-throes-and-then-her-sobbing-bitterly-and-you-trudge-to-your-car-the-cold-cold-night-and-ask-yourself-aloud-what-the-fuck badly. Then she e-mails you three times a day for a year, trying to get back together.  She calls you in the middle of the night and all you hear is her breathing and sometimes her soft crying.  And you swear that it's her driving by the coffee shop where you work, trying catch a glimpse of your face through the storefront glass.

And then one night, you've had it.  Fueled by vexation, you scribble down every hateful thing you can think of saying to her, and, fueled by white Russians, you seal it with a stamp and plop it in the mailbox at four in the morning.

The next day, your throbbing head considers that four double-sided pages might have been overkill.  But it is done.  The e-mails stop.  The phone calls do too.  She is finally gone.

And the next time you see her is years later, smiling on television.  She has a record deal, a music video, an entourage, fame, money, and most striking of all, a life without you.  The girl that once made your phone buzz all night with text messages, now glares at you smugly from the cover of Rolling Stone.

Armed with this backstory, I popped in Lily Allen's It's Not Me, It's You.  ('Cause really, I wouldn't be able to digest it otherwise.)

Like her debut album, this one is equal helpings of upbeat pop and West London snark.  Everyone's at It is a cynical dance-anthem about drug use that gets the album off to a good start.  The Fear is a standout track; self-aware lyrics and crisp production. The thickly-produced album stays true to Lily's style of hep blog-quality slander. I might consider being offended by Fuck You, but I'm familiar with Lily's sense of hyperbole.

But Who'd Have Known takes me back.  I remember that driveway on a Winter's night, watching my breath float over the dashboard, waiting for the car to warm up.  You stood at the bedroom window and you were crying.  When you put your hand on the window, my eyes darted down  to the empty passenger seat.  The engine was cold; I couldn't wait any more.  My gloveless hands gripped the steering wheel and the car crunched soberly away in the thick snow.

Fag Hag is an embarrassing track.  What the fuck, Lily.

As a whole it's not as impressive as her previous outing, but what sophomore effort ever is?  The songs are a bit more self-conscious and introspective, but I would have hoped that three years later, they would have matured accordingly.  I mean, you still haven't found someone who can fuck you properly?  Who gives a shit?

On my "As if you were my ex-girlfriend music ranking system" I'd give this a Wistful, i.e., decent without pushing me into full-blown regret.  I'll can listen to this voluntarily, but I won't be jerking off despondently to the liner notes.

Scale:

• Shitty (just like our relationship)
• Not bad (but we're not getting back together)
• Three stars (meh)
• Wistful (we had some good times)
• Dammit (I made a terrible mistake)