Inside Lily Allen’s 'West End Girl': When Heartbreak Turns into Public Retribution

Review by Allie LaRoe

Lily Allen 'West End Girl' released October 24th, 2025 via BMG

Whether you like Lily Allen’s latest album, West End Girl, comes down to two things: Do you believe that heartbreak deserves vengeance? And how much do you enjoy celebrity gossip?

After I pushed my best friend to give the album a listen, she asked, “Who is this even for?” Like many women contemplating an unpopular opinion, I turned to the group chat for perspective. “‘Sleepwalking’ was the only song that felt relatable. That is what it feels like [when you find out you’ve been cheated on]. But there wasn’t a single track I’d add to a playlist.”

Another friend declared, “Good for her! If you wanna talk shit, talk shit girl! It feels very much like a raw reading of a journal and like an angry letter she recorded instead of sending or burning.” Later, a song called “Pussy Palace,” about discovering sex toys in a secret second apartment, made an appearance in that particular friend’s stories. It was clear she was vibing with the album in a way that I just wasn’t.

West End Girl is a concept album, and it’s a well-executed one. Each song progresses the story, seamlessly shifting into new tracks. The melodies are simple yet catchy, featuring Lily Allen’s signature accented delivery. While Allen has made it clear that the album is “not all gospel,” it provides an explicit account of emotional betrayal and a dissolving relationship.

“Honestly, it left me frustrated and I wanted to love it,” a third friend remarked. While she also felt “Sleepwalking” was a standout track, she believed the album lacked the kind of introspection and depth that would have made it more universally relatable. “The heartbreak of losing your best friend, your daily person, the one you share your life with. That disorienting feeling of not trusting your own judgment anymore because you clearly chose wrong — that’s the gut punch I wanted, and it never really comes.”

For me, the album felt like an extensive ‘Am I the A**hole’ Reddit post. It’s the kind of salacious story the internet loves. In “West End Girl,” a marriage is opened. In “‘Tennis’” an affair is uncovered, and the other woman is confronted in “Madeline.” Uninspiring dates are gone on in “Dallas Major,” and a final middle finger is delivered in “Frootyloop.”

But at least Reddit threads have the decency of being anonymous. Allen’s album is clearly taking aim at ex-husband David Harbour, whose name I didn’t even know before this review. It leans heavily into the tabloidization of pop music, with lyrics analyzed not for their quality or emotional impact but as a peek into the lives of the rich and famous.

Ultimately, this is my problem with the album. If these songs had been released by an unknown artist, they would be criticized for feeling too much like an unpaid therapy session. But because Allen is a certain tier of celebrity, there are think pieces questioning whether or not we should feel sorry for her. As if “in order to feel sorry for a rich white lady” is a normal reason to listen to music.

Lily Allen is hardly the first to use the public’s curiosity about the lives of the upper crust to drive interest in a release. Perhaps most frustrating is how relatable this album could have been. I only had to open my contact list to come up with three different women whose experiences parallel Allen’s.

As our expectations of marriage have evolved from practical economic unions to pathways for emotional fulfillment, behaviors and boundaries have shifted and transformed. Too often, these shifts have pushed women to accommodate or compromise out of fear rather than genuine desire, because we still live within the context of a patriarchy.

But West End Girl is no Lemonade. The lyrics maintain what songwriting teacher Pat Pattison would call a “travelogue,” progressing us through time and location but not taking the listener anywhere deeper. While Beyoncé examined class, race, gender, and the effects of celebrity, Allen seems determined to publicly punish her ex and drag us all along for the ride.

For some, that’s enough catharsis. What’s-his-face stands in like a voodoo doll for all the men too anonymous to be outed as bad husbands and sleazeballs. However, if you’re looking for an empowering and uplifting album to get you through your own heartbreak, I’d revisit Beyoncé’s 2016 classic or Patty Griffin’s 1996 debut, Living with Ghosts, instead.