May 12, 2014

“Sheezus” Proves Lily Allen’s Edge Is Sharp As Ever

Jamie Nelson/Warner Bros. Records

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Lily Allen
Sheezus
Warner Bros.

Sheezus cover

Good news: Motherhood and five years off the scene have not dulled Lily Allen’s edge. The sharpest tongue in British music continues to call out poseurs and phonies on this bracing third album, and Allen doesn’t spare herself. She acknowledges her own vulnerabilities and contradictions for all the world to hear. Collaborating again with producer and co-writer Greg Kurstin, Allen specializes in barbed observations wrapped in catchy electro-tinged pop, mocking self-aggrandizing attitudes on the title track, taunting bloggers in “URL Badman” (“When I’m a big boy I’m going to write for Vice“), and taking down celebrity preening on “Insincerely Yours” (“We’re all here coz the price is right”). Getting personal on the straight-talking love song “As Long as I Got You,” she sings sweetly: “Staying home with you is better than sticking things up my nose.” If Allen occasionally seems too focused on the rampant absurdities of junk culture, she’s still a smart, deceptively sophisticated artist—and never, ever boring.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate