The Art of Airing Your Dirty Laundry

"I can't get her messy, bracing new album, which crisply dissects her failed marriage, out of my head. I'm all for processing romantic wounds in private: consuming large tubs of ice cream, drawing the window shades, crying hot tears into the depths of a down pillow. Breakups can be agonizing, even immobilizing; sometimes, wallowing is the ideal way forward. Eventually, you get sick of yourself and move on, though this can take a while-sometimes a long while. That's also okay."

"Allen's West End Girl is a prime example of this tactic. In October, the British performer lit the internet on fire with a 14-track, 45-minute-long effort that tracks the dissolution of her marriage to the actor David Harbour (Stranger Things) after he supposedly violated the terms of their open marriage. (Harbour has not commented directly on Allen's album, but in an interview published last month, he made vague reference to "the slipups and the mistakes" he's made.)"

"Mistakes, perhaps, like the one Allen sings about on "Madeline," a frenetic, sarcastic number addressed to the "other woman": "We had an arrangement / Be discreet and don't be blatant." Later, on the much softer, sadder "Sleepwalking," she laments that there's "been no romance since we wed"-that "you let me think it was me in my head / And nothing to do with them girls in your bed." Ouch."

West End Girl is a 14-track, 45-minute album that traces the dissolution of a marriage following alleged violations of an open-marriage agreement. The songs mix biting sarcasm and vulnerable sadness, shifting from frenetic calls-out to bittersweet lament. Tracks like "Madeline" address an "other woman" with sharp, confrontational lines, while "Sleepwalking" mourns a loss of romance and the feeling of being deceived. The album functions as a highly public expression of breakup, converting private heartbreak into blunt, revenge-tinged pop. The project has provoked broad attention and conversation, partly because of its candid lyrics and the fame of the figures involved.

Read at The Atlantic