Singer and actress Lily Allen has taken to her podcast Miss Me? to give her frank assessment of Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter. And the Bey Hive has taken exception to quite a bit of it.
Allen has spoken about making a new album since 2020.
As she discussed the album with her cohost Miquita Oliver, Allen said she found it "very weird" that Beyonce chose to cover Dolly Parton's "Jolene." But she did admit she hadn't listened to the entire album.
"It's quite an interesting thing to do when you're trying to tackle a new genre, and you just choose the biggest song in that genre to cover," she said, as reported by BuzzFeed. Oliver went on to question Beyoncé's motives, and Allen explained why she believes that Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z are pushing their own sort of agenda.
It's a billion-dollar industry and Beyonce is on top.
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"When Jay-Z got up and said that thing, that was part of this campaign," Allen said, referring to Jay-Z's Grammy speech when he accepted the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award and mentioned the Recording Academy has never given Beyonce the Album of the Year award. "It was before the album had come out or even been announced, and she was wearing the blonde wig and a cowboy hat."
In an ironic twist, of sorts, Allen said she is working on a country album herself. "I’m in Nashville where everyone is really good. There’s so much legacy," she said on the podcast. If she actually follows through and releases such a project, it would be her first new material since 2018's No Shame.
This reveal was not a total surprise, in that she had given hints via X (formerly Twitter) back in January that she had 50 songs written, but nonetheless this recent fault-finding with Bey certainly attracted the attention of the latter star's fans, who have made sure Allen has been trending on social media ever since.
Allen performing at Glastonbury Festival, 2009.
Allen began her pop music career in the 2000s, with her 2007 single "Smile" shooting straight to Number 1 on the UK Official Singles Chart. Her debut studio album, Alright, Still, was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album at the 2008 Grammy Awards, and "Fear," from her second release It's Not Me, It's You, won the Q Award for Best Track in 2009.
Not so long ago, Allen was on the red carpet, winning accolades for her music.
Allen has also ventured into film and television, and received an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress for her work in 2021's 2:22 A Ghost Story. Her last live public performance was at the 2022 Glastonbury Festival. More recently, she joined Olivia Rodrigo onstage for a duet of her single "F--k You," as a protest against the US Supreme Court ruling that abortion was not protected by the Constitution.
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