Singer Lily Allen has just released her sophomore album, It's Not Me, It's You. (EMI Music Canada)

Lily Allen’s latest hit, The Fear, is a mini-symphony of self-doubt. Against a backdrop of finger-picked guitar, Allen delivers a sing-songy list of wildly ostentatious desires, each followed by a cagey disclaimer. “I want loads of clothes, and f---loads of diamonds,” she pouts, then hastily adds, “I heard people die while they’re trying to find them.” Later, she refers to herself as “a weapon of massive consumption,” but insists it’s not her fault; it’s how she’s “programmed to function.”

'I’ve grown up around lots of men — you know, my dad and his friends were such a huge part of my life. And I was always encouraged to behave in exactly the same way as them. No one ever told me that what I was doing was out of line before.'-- Lily Allen

The British singer-songwriter maintains that The Fear isn’t a personal confession, but rather reflects the sorry state of most young girls in our culture, driven mad by the wants and wishes stirred up by magazines and the tabloids. But even as she scoffs, the 24-year-old Allen is all too aware that “most young girls” is a category that includes her. She loves luxury, yet hates herself for loving luxury; fashion mags make her feel “fat and ugly,” and yet she’ll happily pose as a cover girl.

That self-consciousness was palpable on a recent balmy February day in Toronto, as Allen prepared to perform The Fear live in a CBC Radio studio. Though the tabloids paint her as a larger-than-life character, in person she’s anything but. Clad in a leopard-print hoodie and cut-off jean shorts over black tights, Allen could be any downtown kid who shops at H&M. She hunches her shoulders and shrinks inside her sweatshirt, shifting uncomfortably in front of a microphone. Midway through the soundcheck, one of Allen’s false eyelashes falls off, fluttering down her cheek like a hairy caterpillar. When a makeup artist rushes to her rescue, the singer amiably shoos her away. “We can fix ‘em later, though?” Allen says, shrugging. “In the car or something?”

Allen would have every right to act like a diva – or at the very least, a big deal. Her debut album, Alright, Still (2006), sold 3.3 million copies worldwide, carried by the success of the No. 1 single Smile, a cheeky, ska-accented kiss-off to a jerky ex. Though she breezily claimed in a 2006 interview with Pitchfork that she “might not write a very good second album,” her follow-up is considerably stronger.

(EMI Music Canada)

On the recently released It’s Not Me, It’s You, the bratty posturing and anecdotal dance-pop of Alright, Still has been replaced by more focused songwriting, expansive production and a newfound humility in the lyrics. In songs like Back to the Start and He Wasn't There, Allen addresses her fraught relationships with her older sister and father, respectively. These tunes reveal a more vulnerable layer beneath the singer's brazen veneer, but she says the process was hugely cathartic.

“Oh, it’s definitely therapeutic,” she offers, with a rueful smile. “I get a lot out of writing. If I didn't, I wouldn't bother writing songs.”

Though her label steered her toward high-profile collaborators (Damon Albarn, Mark Ronson), Allen was adamant about her choice of producer and co-writer: Greg Kurstin, of indie pop duo the Bird and the Bee. It’s Not Me, It’s You doesn’t have the in-your-face quality of Alright, Still, but the more subtle approach seems to be connecting with listeners: A week after its debut, The Fear climbed an astounding 167 spots to land at the top of the U.K. charts.

Yet far more ink has been spilled on Allen’s public gaffes — like her war of words with Katy Perry (who called herself a “skinnier” version of Allen), the time she mouthed off to Elton John at an awards show and her quips about cocaine use amongst posh folks and her love of shagging older men.

Allen bristles when I ask her about feminism. “I’m a humanist,” she sniffs. But it seems to me that the reason the tabloids are so merciless with her is perhaps because her frankness seems unbecoming of a lady. Her father, Welsh comic actor Keith Allen, told Spin magazine that gender has a lot to do with the vitriol directed toward his daughter. “As a man, I could drink, snort, and f--- to my heart's content without major detriment to my career," he said. “A girl cannot do that.”

Allen performs in London, England. (Jim Dyson/Getty Images)

“It always seems very odd to me,” Lily Allen says, fidgeting with her hair as she sits across from me on a couch, “because I’ve grown up around lots of men — you know, my dad and his friends were such a huge part of my life. And I was always encouraged to behave in exactly the same way as them. And for my behaviour to suddenly be monitored by people in that kind of way… No one ever told me that what I was doing was out of line before.”

Allen was raised in a world that blended the rarefied world of celebrity with working class culture and life in council flats; Clash singer Joe Strummer was her unofficial godfather. Fame may be a natural condition for Allen, but it lacks the sparkly aura it holds for most folks. In fact, Allen has expressed very little passion for making music. Her one goal, she says, is to settle down in the country and start a family. That ambition was thwarted about a year ago, when she miscarried the baby she was expecting with then-boyfriend Ed Simons (of Chemical Brothers). That loss seemed to shift the fearless singer’s relationship to the media somewhat. She became more brittle and sensitive, more wary of intrusions.

“I don’t feel particularly enthused about my career path or what it is I’m doing with my life,” she tells me. As I watched her perform The Fear in this tiny radio studio, I was struck by the effortlessness of her singing: her voice is clear and lovely, her pitch dead-on. It’s almost heartbreaking that Allen seems so disenchanted with a talent that comes so easily to her. There’s a simple reason why she keeps at it.

“I just know that there have been times when I’ve been deeply unhappy in my life and those times are usually when I haven’t got anything to do in the morning. When I’ve got too much time to think about stuff. What inspires me is getting up every morning and having a sense of purpose.”

It’s Not Me, It’s You is in stores now. Lily Allen appears on CBC TV's The Hour Feb. 17 at 11 pm.

Sarah Liss writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.