Spoonfuls of sugar make the Thatcherism go down

So when the Lily Allen album is released stateside (next February), will her 57,000 Myspace friends download it in droves and decide, upon listening to it, that the brat's misanthropy is borne of patrician impatience -- with them? Will they delete her from their friend lists? Was she ever their friend?

Like recent albums by the Pipettes and Amy Diamond, Alright, Still attempts to simulate (what its creators think) the insouciance of girl-pop; instead we get these aural testaments to grim Julie Andrews-style careerism. Or Thatcherism: Diamond and Allen (sounds like a law firm, no?), eyebrows arched, can't hide their disdain for the proles who simply don't know the right people; it reminds me of the rich girls in elementary school who had a laugh about the condition of the poor kid's shoes. This hauteur is a throwback, alright, and it certainly has what the New York Times breathlessly calls "the voice-of-a-generation heft of the Arctic Monkeys’ Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not." Allen sings from the point of view of the clueless snob in Pulp's "Common People," who resorts to smug yuk-yuks when confronted by the (earned) resentment of a Jarvis Cocker or Alex Turner. Tiresome? Sure. But it's more interesting (aesthetically too) than Allen and Diamond's Reagan-baiting optimistic ghoulishness. Gimme ugly satiated whelp Kelly Osbourne any day.