Lily Allen, “Hard Out Here”

Lily Allen’s back after a four-year hiatus, during which she gave birth to two children, with the track “Hard Out Here.” The song title is a play on Three 6 Mafia’s Oscar-winning “Hard Out Here for a Pimp”; the video is a satire of just about every viral music video of the summer, including Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” and Miley Cyrus’s “We Can’t Stop.” It’s getting plenty of deserved side-eye, in part for the lyric, “No need to shake my ass for you ’cause I’ve got a brain” and in part because she’s using black dancers in much the same way that Miley did in her video and at the VMAs. Part of that critique, though, seems to assume that the other women in this video aren’t in on the joke; Lily, for her part, would probably sing back, “if you can’t detect the sarcasm, you’ve misunderstood.” Lots to think about, and I’m sure there will be a wealth of think pieces to choose from tomorrow, but this side-by-side is pretty wonderful for now.