When you think of the album that everyone was talking about last year, only one springs to mind: Lily Allen’s eviscerating marriage post-mortem West End Girl. It’s the album that lit up WhatsApp groups around the country, made jaws drop with the sheer bluntness of it all, and may just have inspired more than one woman to ditch their husband. So why, I want to know, is it not on this year’s Mercury Prize shortlist?
The snubbing of the British pop artist’s career-best work – a blistering, jaw-dropping, skin-pinchingly brutal narrative of a marriage in freefall – is one of the industry’s most spectacular fumbles in some time. Especially when it comes to women in music, the UK has a depressing reputation for failing to champion its own artists until they’re a success elsewhere. But Allen being left out is especially surprising, given it was one of the most critically lauded records of 2025, charting at No 2 in the UK and nominated for Album of the Year at the 2026 Brit Awards.
