Perhaps best known for her 2008 hit “Fuck You,” Lily Allen has never been afraid of ruffling feathers. She dropped out of school at 15—having attended 13 and getting expelled from several—and moved to Ibiza, where she worked in a record store and dealt Ecstasy. But five years later, after posting her songs on Myspace, she signed a record deal and released her debut album, Alright, Still. Since then, she’s come out with six albums, and had two children, two husbands, and two divorces—the latter is the subject of her latest musical release, West End Girl, out last week. It’s a reflection on her life as a 40-year-old mother whose marriage to the actor David Harbour has unraveled. As the critic Will Hodgkinson writes in the Times of London, “Whether or not you feel dirty laundry should be aired in public—and the album really does build up a massive pile of it—there is no denying the authenticity of experience here.” —Jeanne Malle