Lily Allen Returns, Rips Twerking, 'Blurred Lines'

British singer Lily Allen has released her first single in three years, coming out of semi-retirement to cheekily take a swing at the music industry and its treatment of women. The video for "Hard Out Here" features Allen's scantily-clad dancers "twerking" and Allen herself pretending to get liposuction to "fix" her post-baby body (she took time off to have two daughters), Sky News reports. Reaction to the video (which is pretty NSFW) so far is good:

• At Salon, Prachi Gupta writes that the "catchy" song "point[s] out the hypocrisy of sexism" and "poke[s] fun at the stereotypes and expectations placed on women by society."
• At Slate, Aisha Harris writes that the song and video "prove that [Allen] hasn’t lost any of her biting wit" and offer "an indictment of pop culture, with blatant shots taken at Robin Thicke’s endlessly controversial video for 'Blurred Lines' and the whipping girl du jour, Miley Cyrus."

(More Lily Allen stories.)