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Lily Allen · S6 E2
Sheezus
Taking on Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Gaga — was it brave or naive?
It's the first week of May 2014, and every music journalist in Britain is writing the same headline: has Lily Allen lost her mind? She has named her album Sheezus, and the title track takes on Beyonce, Rihanna, and Katy Perry by name.
"URL Badman" by Lily Allen (2014). Lily takes on internet trolls with the same fearlessness she brings to pop royalty. The video captures the absurdity of online culture: everyone's a tough guy behind a keyboard, and Lily isn't having any of it. Same confrontational energy that drives the entire Sheezus album.
The Name
Kanye West releases Yeezus in June 2013, an album built on the idea that he is so talented, so important, that comparing himself to Jesus isn't arrogance but simple fact. The record sells millions and nobody bats an eye at the title. Lily Allen hears that silence and wonders: what happens when a woman tries the same thing?
URL Badman, Lily Allen (2014)
'URL Badman' is Lily at her most sardonic, mocking the keyboard warriors who spent years telling her she's finished. Listen for how the beat drops out entirely during the spoken-word sections, leaving nothing but Lily's voice and the silence where a troll's courage used to be. Kurstin keeps the instrumentation deliberately cheap-sounding: tinny synths and a beat that could have been programmed on a laptop, matching the low-effort world of internet commentary. It's a comedy track with real teeth.
TAP TO REVEAL: Which four artists does Lily name-drop in the opening verse of 'Sheezus'?
KOKO, Camden Town, London
One of North London's most storied music venues, and a room Lily Allen has known since her teenage years in the Camden scene. When you name your album after Kanye West and call out Beyonce in the first verse, there's only one way to prove you mean it: stand on a stage and back it up.
Sheezus: The Numbers
Black Skinhead, Kanye West
This is the album Lily Allen named herself after. 'Black Skinhead' is Yeezus at its most confrontational: tribal drums, industrial noise, and the absolute certainty of genius. Listen to it back-to-back with the Sheezus title track and the comparison becomes clear. Lily was reaching for this energy, this confidence, this refusal to care what anyone thinks. Whether she got there is what the rest of this season is about.
Black Skinhead, Kanye West (2013)
Read the lyrics while you listen. This is the voice Lily Allen decided she could match. The aggression, the self-belief, the total refusal to apologise for ambition. Whether naming your album after this man's record is brave or delusional depends entirely on who you ask.
Which producer worked with Lily Allen on both It's Not Me, It's You AND Sheezus?
The 'Hard Out Here' video has been called both feminist satire and racist in the same sentence. Next episode: the clip that forces Lily Allen to defend everything she thought she stood for.
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