Lily Allen has blamed the delayed release of her second album on her record company, EMI. The Smile singer claims the LP has "been finished for a while now" but insists she does not "really know what's going on with it".

She writes on her MySpace blog on August 16: "The record industry is a very political place at the moment.

"Lots of people have been fired or have taken redundancy (laid off) recently as the company (EMI) was taken over.

"Many of these people were people assigned to my projects and now I don't quite know what's going on."

But the star, whose debut album Alright, Still was released in July 2006, remains optimistic her fans won't have to wait much longer to hear the follow-up, titled Stuck on the Naughty Step.

She adds: "I'm sure everyone will find their feet soon enough and I'll be able to put the album out soon."

Over 2,000 employees were cut from EMI after the label was purchased by capital group Terra Firma in 2007.

- Lily Allen Gallery

(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)