Lily Allen Has A Baggy Pussy, And A Scathing Opinion Of The Pop Industry
"We've never had it so good / We're out of the woods / And if you can't detect the sarcasm you've misunderstood."
In the four years since releasing her second studio album It’s Not Me, It’s You, Lily Allen has opened a clothing store, started her own record label, and had two children. After what she referred to as her “mumback” — a live appearance at a Paris fashion show in February, produced by Mark Ronson — she changed her professional name back to Lily Allen, and announced she had a new album in the works.
‘Hard Out Here’ is the first single she’s released since 2009. And it’s meta, sarcastic, and brutal.
Released overnight, the clip is a scathing attack on the industry she’s trying to re-enter, opening with the artist getting rejected by Letterman and Kimmel while undergoing liposuction: “How does somebody get like this?” asks her manager. “I’ve — I’ve had two babies!” she stammers.
What follows is a takedown of each hallmark of modern pop music videos: with slow-motion twerking, Autotune, shiny cars, bling, product placement, champagne, and a bunch of butts, all it’s missing is a thick dub breakdown. Each scene is puppeteered by a seedy industry man and delivered by a savage and savvy Allen, who dismantles the double standards of pop music, while embodying all of its tropes: “If you I told you bought my sex life, you’d call me as slut / When boys be talkin’ bout their bitches, no one’s making a fuss … It’s time to speed it up, ‘coz I can’t move in this space.”
And the best bit? Some ‘Blurred Lines’-referencing silver balloons, which spell out the words: ‘LILY ALLEN HAS A BAGGY PUSSY’.
The release of the clip was preceded by a Twitter Q&A about poorly-treated females from history, hinting at the song’s subject matter.
It even comes with its own hashtag.
