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While it seems pretty easy for Perez Hilton to hate Lily Allen, I find it nearly impossible not to love her to pieces. What’s not to love, really? Her songs are unbelievably catchy, she’s cute as a button, and even when she says “shit” and “fuck,” it’s adorable. On her sophomore album, It’s Not Me, It’s You, Allen’s demented Disneyland nightmare soundtrack style is still intact (see: “Never Gonna Happen” and “Fuck You”), but she also seems to have reluctantly grown up a bit.

On “22,” she looks into a bleak, not so distant future as a single 30-something, “It’s sad but it’s true how society says her life is already over/There’s nothing to do and there’s nothing to say/Til the man of her dreams comes along, picks her up and puts her over his shoulder/It seems so likely in this day and age.” As always, the melancholy lyrics are off-set by chipper pop blips and energetic piano chords.

However, there are many songs on this album, unlike her debut, Alright Still, that are flat-out gloomy…especially for Allen. The lead-off track, “Everyone’s At It,” is perhaps the most straight-forward pop song about drugs ever, “So your daughter’s depressed, well get her straight on the Prozac/But little do you know she already takes crack/Why can’t we all just be honest/Admit to ourselves that everyone’s on it.” The pop blips and energetic piano chords are only slightly chipper.

Fear seems to be the under-lying theme of It’s Not Me, It’s You. Besides the obvious example of the song, “The Fear,” Allen seems to fear everything; Fame, love, loneliness, age, even other people’s drug habits. But in the end, she’s conquering those fears by writing great fucking pop songs about them. The record is fun, but real. Though it may be reluctant, the growth on It’s Not Me is obvious. She’s managed to maintain her signature sound while changing and expanding it, and making the sort of sophomore album that most other pop starlets in her position only pretend to make.

Perez, fuck you very, very much.