Kate Nash To Critics: Stop Comparing Me to Lily Allen!

Rihanna may have spent her tenth week at No. 1 on the UK pop charts – a record for this century – but it’s Kate Nash‘s name that’s on everyone’s lips this weekend. Certainly, if not for Rihanna’s modern classic, Nash would be sitting pretty atop the chart herself, and the press has gone into overdrive. She has three major profiles in British papers right now. They are almost identical in content: all of them cover her upbringing in the small town of Harrow, England and mostly, those comparisons to Lily Allen. She sounds relatively OK with it all in The Sun:

“Sometimes I mind and sometimes I don’t. It’s one of those things that just come because everything’s happened so quickly. When my album comes out, everyone will be able to judge me.”

She’s a bit more peeved in her interview with The Independent, blaming it all on the sexist patriarchy:

“I’ve been boxed as the next Lily Allen because I’m a girl,” she says. “We don’t sound anything like each other. In fact, they bunch a box of us [young artists] together and call us the new Lily Allens.”

When she gets to The Guardian, the strop starts to show:

Kate Nash doesn’t think comparisons to Lily Allen are valid. “I just disagree about it!” she frowns. “My music doesn’t sound like her. It’s so annoying. I just wanna be me.”

Well, the Lily comparisons are certainly valid if you consider the lyrics to “Foundations,” which appears to collapse the content of Alright, Still album into one song. Instead of Lily’s taunt “Well let’s see how you feel in a couple of weeks/When I work my way through your mates” in “Not Big,” Nash sneers to her jerk boyfriend, “You said I must eat so many lemons/’cause I am so bitter/I said’I'd rather be with your friends mate ’cause they are much fitter.’”She’s a clever girl, and I’ll see where she goes with her next couple of albums. ‘Til then, enjoy “Foundations” at No. 2 on this week’s chart. Also, Lily Allen’s back in the Top 10 with her Mark Ronson-produced remake of Kaiser Chiefs‘ “Oh My God”:

1. Rihanna – Umbrella
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2. Kate Nash – Foundations
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3. Timbaland ft. Keri Hilson, D.O.E.,and Sebastian – The Way I Are
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4. Fergie – Big Girls Don’t Cry
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5. Enrique Iglesias – Do You Know(The Ping Pong Song)
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6. The Hoosiers – Worried AboutRay
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7. Avril Lavigne – When You’reGone
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8. Mark Ronson ft. Lily Allen – Oh My God
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9. Arctic Monkeys – FluorescentAdolescent
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10. My Chemical Romance – Teenagers
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In other news:

• Have some Brie with your Blur: bassist Alex James has launched a series of video “Cheese Diaries” for The Guardian.
• The tough guys in the indie rock band The Enemy are pissed that they were ousted from No. 1 on the album chart by opera singer Paul Potts.”It’s a f***ing disgrace,” says frontman Tom Clarke to The Mirror. “Nobody will know who this bloke is in a year’s time.” Speak for yourself, lad.
• Why we love Amy Winehouse “the drunk” and not Pete Doherty “the junkie” or Britney “the crazy, trashy, baby-dropping, car window-smashing,barefoot-in-a-public-restroom bald chick”: “Amy consistently wins the benefit of the doubt because of her immense talents. The industry views her differently from the likes of Britney Spears and Pete Doherty. Perhaps it’s that Winehouse, a songwriting singer of melodic and accessible pop, has a talent – commercial yet edgy – that is palatable to cultural gatekeepers in a way Britney’s and Pete’s is not, despite their huge fanbases.”(Guardian)
• Kate Moss‘ ex heralds Mercury Prize nominees Bat For Lashes and lead singer Natasha Khan: “I think Bat For Lashes are beyond a trend or fashion band,” Jefferson Hack told The Guardian. “[Khan] has an ancient power; like Bjork or Patti Smith, she is in part shamanic.”
• British soul singer Ali Love, whose song “Secret Sunday Lover” sounds like something Bobby Brown would have sung in the ’80s, does his “Everyday Objects” interview with The Guardian. At the end of the video, he slips on a Doctor Who Cyberman Voice Changer Helmet (avaliable in the BBC AMERICA shop, no less), to which the fools over at the big G respond, “May the force be with you!”
• Sophie Ellis-Bextor accidentally flashed the crowd during a wind gust at the T4 on the Beach concert.(Mirror)
• The Spice Girls may double the number of tour dates to satisfy the huge demand for tickets. But can the ladies handle the schedule?(Mirror)
• Over at Billboard, Robert Smith talks about the upcoming Cure documentary. And he’s unrepentant about that claim he wanted to work with Ashlee Simpson. “I was encouraged to issue a denial, but I thought, why? I don’t deny anything. I don’t see the point. I’ve worked with lots of different people down the years.” The Stereogum hipsters react.
• Like they ever had a say in the matter: Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce “rule out” a Smiths reunion. Also: Rourke reveals some Moz “goss.” Apparently, Mr. Morrissey spent 10 minutes in a room with a “delivery boy” and can be quite the snippy diva. In other news, the sun sets in the West.(NME)
• Madonna hits back at Morrissey’s comment that “she made that African boy she adopted into and a coat and wore him for 15 minutes, then threw it away.” “?What kind of a person could even call up such imagery and words?” she responds, through a spokesperson, of course. So the person behind the lyrics “I love New York/All the other cities make me feel like a dork” dares to go up against one of music’s greatest wordsmiths? Good luck with that one, Madge.(US Magazine)
• Joe Pernice of the Pernice Brothers is penning a screenplay based on The Smiths‘ Meat is Murder album.(Pitchfork)
• Matt Bellamy of Muse praises Arctic Monkeys.(NME)