Lily Allen’s upcoming album, Sheezus, might poke fun at Kanye West, but on the recently premiered title track, she turns her attention to another crop of royals: Lorde, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga don’t just get name-checked on “Sheezus” — Allen’s search-engine-optimized opinions of her pop-star peers make up the song’s entire hook. At first, the “Hard Out Here” singer doesn’t exactly sound like she’s full of praise (except for Lorde, who’s “about to slay you”), but listen closely — this is no diss track. If anything, Allen wants her ladies to unite in bringing their A-game: “Second best will never cut it for the divas / Give me that crown, bitch / I wanna be Sheezus.”
As Allen hinted in interviews, the downtempo song — which she says, to her dismay, was too slow to be a single contender — has her casually riffing on menstruation (something you don’t hear on the radio everyday) and repeating the word “period” like she was Beyoncé on “Drunk in Love.”
Is #period the new #serfbort? Probably not. Is Allen about to go all Game of Thrones on her competition? Judging by early previews of Sheezus, the answer is yes.
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