wax&wires

Wax Pick: Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You

Lily Allen returns with a new album today, It’s Not Me, It’s You, hoping to follow up on the success of her throwback hit, Alright, Still.

In a questionable move, Lily chose not to work with producer Mark Ronson again for It’s Not Me, It’s You. Let’s not forget that Ronson was named “Producer Of The Year – Non Classical” at the 2008 Grammy Awards, I’m sure at least in small part due to his work with Lily, as well as having produced Amy Winehouse. All that accreditation led to Ronson’s winning of Producer of the Year, as well as two additional Grammy’s for “Record of the Year” and “Best Pop Vocal Album” for his work on Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black. Lily also sang a Kaiser Chief’s cover of “Oh My God” on Ronson’s own album Version (seriously one of my favorite albums of the past year or two).

So why do you walk away from one of the hottest producers around? When asked, Lily said that she wanted to move in a new direction because, “I did a retro thing last time, and since I did that, a lot of other people did it too. I wanted to separate myself from the group and move forward.”

Under pressure from her label, Lily tried to work with several writers and producers on It’s Not Me, It’s You, but efforts proved unsuccessful. She returned to Greg Kurstin, who had written three songs for Alright, Still. Kurstin produced the new album. Lily was quoted as having said, “We decided to try and make bigger sounding, more ethereal songs, real songs… I wanted to work with one person from start to finish to make it one body of work. I wanted it to feel like it had some sort of integrity. I think I’ve grown up a bit as a person and I hope it reflects that.”

I’m a huge and unashamed fanboy of Kurstin, mostly for his work with The Bird And The Bee, so I was sold on this album from first hearing that he had his hands all over it. I actually dig the album’s tones and textures too. It’s a nice departure from the retro ska-influenced sound we’re used to hearing from Lily. It’s on sale at Amazon on it’s release day for just $3.99, check it out.

Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 3:30 pm. It is filed under wax picks and tagged with lily allen, uk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.