I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, the idea of someone reading my diary entry was one of the worst things that could happen. A person I didn’t know (or even worse, a person I did know) reading my innermost thoughts? Anathema. The fact that they were most likely trivialities about school, friends and family were irrelevant; I simply didn’t want anyone else knowing what I was thinking, what I was worried about, or what was occupying my 10-year-old mind.
Even now, I’m not crazy about the idea of sharing personal writing. It takes a certain level of vulnerability to put yourself out there in that way, and I’m a work-in-progress on that front. So the idea that a pop star would not only put their innermost thoughts on paper, but present it to the world in the form of 14 songs? Admirable, if nothing else.
Lily Allen’s latest album West End Girl has caused quite a kerfuffle and spawned countless thinkpieces and hot-takes on the idea of a 'confessional’ album. Many have applauded her openness in documenting the end of her marriage to actor David Harbour in such detail: there is no room for metaphor or subterfuge on songs like Pussy Palace ( "I found a shoebox full of handwritten letters / From brokenhearted women wishing you could have been better") or Tennis ("Then you showed me a photo on Instagram / It was how you grabbed your phone back right out of my hands"), just two songs from the tracklist which read like diary entries. On Madeline, she recounts a conversation with a woman Harbour has been sleeping with: "We had an arrangement, be discreet and don't be blatant / There had to be payment, it had to be with strangers / But you're not a stranger, Madeline" and Dallas Major relays her own experience of getting back into online dating after their split: "Yes, I'm here for validation and I probably should explain / How my marriage has been opened since my husband went astray." And let’s be completely honest: at the end of the day, most people love a bit of hot gossip - especially when it involves two famous people and their (now) very public breakup.
Lily Allen as Madeline for Halloween. pic.twitter.com/NDNSDjAXR6
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) November 1, 2025
Of course, there’s an element of ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’, too; the whole world now knows the alleged misdeeds of Harbour and his apparent insistence on an open marriage. You’d have to assume that there is also a catharsis for Allen in sharing an experience that many other people have been through, too; a problem shared is a problem halved as they say, and for many it makes the ‘unreachable’ uber-famous pop star more relatable and human.
Not everyone agrees, of course. Some fans and journalists have pooh-poohed the idea of a pop star daring to write first-hand about her personal life, with one bemoaning the absence of subtext in contemporary music, and claiming that "we were never meant to know this much about one another". I beg to differ: if you don’t like authenticity, truthfulness and stories of human flaws and vulnerability in your music, we may as well just give in to AI and let computers write tunes tailored to your own personal algorithm. Hearing other people’s experiences, even if it makes us uncomfortable? Perish the thought.
What’s so wrong with knowing more about the humans behind the music? With West End Girl, Allen also continues a long tradition of confessional albums. Rumors documented both the drama and tension within Fleetwood Mac and the turbulent relationship between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, most famously on The Chain and the vicious Go Your Own Way ("Loving you isn’t the right thing to do / How can I ever change things that I feel?"); Joni Mitchell’s Blue explored the heartache and angst of her relationship with James Taylor ("Crown and anchor me / Or let me sail away") and the sadness of giving her daughter up for adoption; although he has denied it, it’s widely accepted that Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks was written around his tumultuous estrangement from his wife Sara (most notably, the vindictive Idiot Wind: "Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth / You're an idiot, babe, it's a wonder that you still know how to breathe").
In more contemporary times, pop and rock artists have bared their souls, too - although not always as bluntly as Allen. Beyonce’s Lemonade examined the fall-out from her husband Jay Z’s alleged affair with ‘Becky with the good hair’ on songs like Love Drought ("I always been committed, I been focused / I always paid attention, been devoted / Tell me, what did I do wrong?") and Pray You Catch Me ("You can taste the dishonesty / It's all over your breath as you pass it off so cavalier", although admittedly there were no references to butt plugs or voicenotes from his lover incorporated into songs. Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs wrote one of the all-time great confessional songs with Maps, reportedly about her then-boyfriend Angus Andrews of the band Liars (the title is said to be an acronym for My Angus Please Stay). Adele plundered from a similar well on 21 with songs like Someone Like You, written in the wake of her 18-month relationship ending and her ex getting engaged mere months later; just because that big pop balladry is radio-friendly and commercial, does it make the place that it came from any less authentic?
Whether West End Girl goes down in that pantheon of greats remains to be seen. Even so, its success has been a reminder that amid all the sanitised nonsense that your Spotify algorithm may fling your way, people still want to hear gut-punching stories based in truth and told from first-hand experience. And if David Harbour ever feels like releasing his own album to balance the books - well, we’re all ears, too.
Lauren Murphy is the host of culture podcast Get Around To It
