Lily Allen’s new album is a "response" to her last venture ‘Sheezus’.
The 33-year-old singer will release her fourth studio album ‘No Shame’ on June 8, four years after her last record ‘Sheezus’, and has said the work has been heavily influenced by the "identity crisis" she suffered whilst making her 2014 album, after she was left unable to connect with the music she was creating.
When asked how much of ‘No Shame’ is a "response" to the process of making ‘Sheezus’, Lily said: "The whole thing. I think that the idea going into Sheezus was really well-intentioned. I think I was suffering from postnatal depression when I started writing it, and I think I was having an identity crisis, that I did not know I was a new mum. I felt like I needed to be a pop star to pay my bills, and I didn’t feel like that, so I did what I thought pop stars should do, and it was very wrong."
And whilst Lily doesn’t think the music from ‘Sheezus’ is "that bad", she admits the problem came from the way the record was marketed.
Asked by Stereogum if she knew during the production process that it was going in the wrong direction, she said: "Well, I don’t think the music, actually, was that bad. It was more the marketing and the way that I looked, the clothes that I was wearing and the stage design. It was like a sort of weird ‘Alice In Wonderland’, but bad.
"But I can’t blame it on anyone. I OK’d it, I approved it. But because I didn’t have a sense of self at the time, I was looking to other people to guide me. And I’ve always done it myself, which is, I think, what translated to people before. The sense of honesty. I think I just felt like I couldn’t sell it, ’cause I didn’t know who I was."
Lily’s next album ‘No Shame’ will be released on June 8.
Lily Allen: No Shame is a ‘response’ to Sheezus
