No Shame
Lily Allen
No Shame is the fourth studio album by British singer-songwriter Lily Allen, released June 8, 2018 through Parlophone Records. A deeply confessional electropop record with strong infusions of dancehall, reggae, and ska, the 14-track, 51-minute album was written and recorded in the years following Allen's divorce from husband Sam Cooper, and represents a stark tonal shift from the more commercially oriented Sheezus (2014) — an album Allen herself largely disowned as one she made "for the record company." Produced primarily by Fryars, with contributions from Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig and Mark Ronson, No Shame strips back the bombast of Allen's earlier work in favour of minimalist production, slow-burn balladry, and softly pulsing electronic beats. Guest appearances from Giggs on "Trigger Bang," Burna Boy on "Your Choice," and Lady Chann on the reggae-flecked "Waste" add texture throughout, while the core of the album is unambiguously Allen at her most exposed and unguarded.
Thematically, the record is a sustained act of self-reckoning, covering the collapse of her marriage, maternal guilt, substance abuse, loneliness, and the relentless online and tabloid scrutiny she has long endured — all delivered in Allen's characteristic almost-bored spoken-word cadence that makes the lyrical candour land all the harder. The album opens with "Come on Then," in which she sighs "I'm a bad mother, I'm a bad wife / You saw it on the socials, you read it online," and deepens through the central family drama trifecta of "Family Man," "Apples," and the devastating "Three" — a piano ballad written from the perspective of her young daughters watching their mother leave on tour again. The Line of Best Fit called it "a masterpiece," while RTÉ praised it as her "best album yet," noting that it "starts with candy floss pop laced with arsenic, slowly descends into real darkness, and emerges with a dopey smile on its face in the end."
No Shame
Lily Allen
No Shame is the fourth studio album by British singer-songwriter Lily Allen, released June 8, 2018 through Parlophone Records. A deeply confessional electropop record with strong infusions of dancehall, reggae, and ska, the 14-track, 51-minute album was written and recorded in the years following Allen's divorce from husband Sam Cooper, and represents a stark tonal shift from the more commercially oriented Sheezus (2014) — an album Allen herself largely disowned as one she made "for the record company." Produced primarily by Fryars, with contributions from Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig and Mark Ronson, No Shame strips back the bombast of Allen's earlier work in favour of minimalist production, slow-burn balladry, and softly pulsing electronic beats. Guest appearances from Giggs on "Trigger Bang," Burna Boy on "Your Choice," and Lady Chann on the reggae-flecked "Waste" add texture throughout, while the core of the album is unambiguously Allen at her most exposed and unguarded.
Thematically, the record is a sustained act of self-reckoning, covering the collapse of her marriage, maternal guilt, substance abuse, loneliness, and the relentless online and tabloid scrutiny she has long endured — all delivered in Allen's characteristic almost-bored spoken-word cadence that makes the lyrical candour land all the harder. The album opens with "Come on Then," in which she sighs "I'm a bad mother, I'm a bad wife / You saw it on the socials, you read it online," and deepens through the central family drama trifecta of "Family Man," "Apples," and the devastating "Three" — a piano ballad written from the perspective of her young daughters watching their mother leave on tour again. The Line of Best Fit called it "a masterpiece," while RTÉ praised it as her "best album yet," noting that it "starts with candy floss pop laced with arsenic, slowly descends into real darkness, and emerges with a dopey smile on its face in the end."