Yes, it's you: Allen's personality shines through on new album

Lily Allen's debut single "Smile" was an extraordinary piece of pop songwriting. Like all great chart-toppers, its melody was perfectly constructed, bouncy verse building into swirling chorus. But there was a lot more going on in the song, and I'll admit it was only on fourth or fifth listen that I realized how complex it was. It may be called "Smile," but the song is anything but happy: Lurking beneath its day-glo surface and coquettish vocals is a mess of pain and misery. Chorus: "When I see you cry / It makes me smile." Hmm. Ouch.

On her triumphant second album, "It's Not Me, It's You," Allen pulls the same trick twice. At first listen, the record comes off as almost overbearingly cheerful: Many of the songs are upbeat, the production fizzes with sonic invention, and Allen pushes her lighthearted vocal style to new extremes, positively squealing into the mike at times. But give even half an ear to Allen's lyrics, and you realize she is still far from a happy girl. If anything, three years of fame have made this West London native angrier at the world, and it's this disarming emotional candor that makes "It's Not Me, It's You" such a remarkable record.

After all, fame usually does quite the opposite to people. I, for one, was convinced Allen's snarky personality would be white-washed over on her second effort, that her forceful - and distinctly British - personality would be branded a hard transatlantic sell. Her lame, lifeless cover version of "Womanizer" has been making the rounds online, and I was petrified that Allen would soon be just another pre-fab pop star, baring flesh and not much else.

Thankfully, that's not the case. If anything, Allen's quirky sense of humor shines stronger on her second LP. Where her debut "Alright, Still" had moments that seemed self-consciously tame, here she is unleashed. Her ego stamps itself mercilessly onto every track, and I mean that in the very best way. It's not every day that a mainstream singer comes out with something like, "I lie here in the wet patch / in the middle of the bed / I'm feeling pretty damn hard done by / I spent ages giving head."

Yet that's exactly what you'll hear on "Not Fair," a demented electro-country jig (yeah...) that is easily one of the album's highlights. Other 24-carat moments can easily be found. On the rather bizarre "Him," for instance, Allen muses on about the biggest Him of all, the big, bearded man in the sky. She comes up with some rather interesting conclusions, like deciding "His favorite band is probably Creedence Clearwater Revival."

The skittering "I Could Say" opens on a different note. Allen addresses her ex with a striking frankness: "I could say that I'll always be here for you / but that would be a lie and quite a pointless thing to do." Like another inexplicably successful British export, Mike Skinner of the Streets, Allen has a knack for passing colloquial language off as poetry. Like Skinner, she pulls no punches, exposing herself emotionally in a way few pop stars ever have.

The overall tone of "It's Not Me, It's You" is hardly cheerful, then. Her first single "The Fear" is a good indicator of the record as a whole. A paranoid celeb rant to rank with the best of them, the song veers from hedonistic verse ("I'm packing plastic / and that's what makes my life so fucking fantastic") to terrified, minor-chord chorus ("I don't know what's right or what's real anymore ... I'm being taken over by the fear"). It's a sort of "Smile, Pt. 2," masking emotional turmoil with its effervescent electro-pop exterior.

Just as clever is "Everyone's At It," an anti-drug anthem that's almost as hilariously tasteless as Eminem's "Drug Ballad." Sure, Allen stops short of lines like "Let the X destroy your spinal cord / so it's not a straight line no more," but she does pack a fair share of memorable one-liners against a raging, near-apocalyptic musical backdrop. Best? Tough call, but I'll go with "Your daughter's depressed; we'll get her straight on the Prozac / But little do you know she already takes crack."

But while it's certainly Allen's lyrical prowess that lifts the album from good to great, it's also just a damn fun pop record, overflowing with million-dollar hooks and ingenious production tricks.

I suppose "electro-pop" is the easiest tag to give the album, but such a description does little justice to its sheer sonic variety. From the unhinged accordion-strut of "Never Gonna Happen" to the sputtering jazz samples of closer "He Wasn't There," the album's musical range is in many ways as entertaining as its lyrics.

The incendiary "Fuck You," which is somehow being slated as the second single, certainly matches music to meaning with hilarious results. At the song's climax, Allen's auto-tuned voice chirps out a harmony of climbing "fuck you"s over a wonderfully plastic beat, all glam bass stabs and synthetic horns. It's a demented moment, utterly ridiculous but also quite brilliant. And it's hardly the exception on a record that's got some of the best pop of the year. Forget Britney Spears' "Circus." Definitely forget Beyonce's "I Am... Sasha Fierce." In a market choked with blander-than-bland pop stars, Lily Allen is the glorious wild card. She's much more than just an amusing oddity: As proved on "It's Not Me, It's You," Allen has what it takes to last for years to come.

5 paws