User:17Drew/Lily Allen

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Lily Allen
Lily Allen performing in June 2007.
Lily Allen performing in June 2007.
Background information
Birth name Lily Rose Beatrice Allen
Born May 2, 1985 (1985-05-02) (age 23)
Origin Flag of England Hammersmith, London, England
Genre(s) Ska, pop, grime
Occupation(s) Singer, songwriter
Instrument(s) Vocals, guitar[1]
Years active 2006–present
Label(s) Regal
Website LilyAllenMusic.com

Lily Rose Beatrice Allen (born May 2, 1985) is an English singer-songwriter. Growing up in a working class family, Allen worked a series of odd jobs, including singing. After writing several songs with Future Cut, she was signed to Regal Records in 2005. She gained popularity from posting songs she had recorded on MySpace, leading to an early release of her debut album Alright, Still in July 2006. The album performed well and yielded the lead single "Smile", which topped the UK Singles Chart.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] 1985–2000: Early life

Lily Allen was born in Hammersmith, London, to comedian Keith Allen, and the film producer Alison Owen.[2] She and her family eventually settled in the North London borough of Islington. She has an older sister, Sarah; a younger brother, Alfie Owen-Allen (who was the subject of her song "Alfie"); and a younger sister Rebecca. She also a number of half-siblings, including her half-sister, Teddy. In 1988, Lily appeared on The Comic Strip Presents... episode "The Yob", which her father had co-written.[3] When she was four years old, he left the family.[4]

Allen grew up with her mother in a working class environment, living in a council house for most of her childhood.[5] Allen attended 13 schools, including Hill House School and Bedales School.[4] She was expelled from several schools for smoking, drinking, and performing fellatio.[6] In her free time, she listened to artists such as The Specials, T.Rex, and Happy Mondays and read.[7] Allen made an appearance as a lady-in-waiting in the 1998 film Elizabeth, produced by her mother.[8] She dropped out of school at age fifteen, not wanting to "spend a third of her life preparing to work for the next third of her life, to set herself up with a pension for the next third of her life."[9]

[edit] 2000–2006: Early career

After her family went to Ibiza on vacation, Lily told her mother that she was staying with friends but remained in Sant Antoni de Portmany instead. She earned money by working at a Plastic Fantastic record store and dealing ecstasy.[9] Allen met her first manager, George Lamb, when he saved her from several assaulters and sent her home.[9][10] Lily was rejected from several labels, which she attributed to her drinking and being the daughter of Keith Allen.[10] Lily eventually used her father's connections to get signed to Warner Music in 2002.[11] When the executive who had signed her left, the label lost interest and she left without releasing the folk songs they had presented her.[11][12] Allen studied horticulture with the intent of becoming a florist but changed her mind and returned to music. She began writing songs, and her manager introduced her to production duo Future Cut in 2004. They worked in a small studio in the basement of an office building.[12]

In 2005 she was signed to Regal Records, a division of Parlophone. The label gave her GB£25,000 to produce an album and was unable to provide much support for her since it was preoccupied with other releases such as Coldplay's X&Y and Gorillaz' Demon Days. She created an account on MySpace and began posting demos in November 2005.[13] The demos attracted thousands of listeners, and 500 limited edition 7" vinyl singles of "LDN" were rush-released, reselling for as much as £40.[9][13] Allen also produced two mixtapes, titled My First Mixtape and My Second Mixtape, with tracks by influences including Creedence Clearwater Revival, Dizzee Rascal, and Ludacris to promote her work. As she accumulated tens of thousands of MySpace friends due to her blog and ska-pop songs, The Observer Music Monthly, a magazine published in The Observer, took interest.[9] Few people outside of her label's A&R department knew who she was, so the label was slow in responding to publications wanting to report about her.[13] In its March 2006 issue, OMM included an article about Allen's success through MySpace, and she received her first major mainstream coverage appearing in the magazine's cover story two months later. The success of her songs convinced her label to allow her more creative control over the album and to use some of the songs that she had written instead of attempts to work with mainstream producers. Allen decided to work with producers Greg Kurstin and Mark Ronson, finishing the rest of the album in two weeks.[13]

[edit] 2006–present: Alright, Still

Allen performing in June 2007.
Allen performing in June 2007.

Originally planned for a January 2007 release, Alright, Still was released in the United Kingdom July 17, 2006.[13] The album debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart,[14] backed by the success of "Smile", released two weeks earlier. "Smile", a song that Allen wrote about revenge on her first boyfriend Lester Lloyd,[15] topped the UK Singles Chart for two weeks and was moderately successful worldwide.[16] "LDN" was re-released September 25 as the second single from the album. The calypso-style song, which describes a shadier side of London,[17] was less succesful than "Smile", peaking at number six in the UK and unable to reach the top twenty elsewhere.[18]

Allen had her first American release the next day with a four-track digital extended play of "Smile". Alright, Still was released in the U.S. January 30, 2007 and was less successful than in the UK, debuting and peaking at number twenty on the Billboard 200.[19] "Smile", her only single to chart in the U.S., was also unsuccessful and only reached number forty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100.[20] Her style of cocktail dresses and athletic shoes gained popularity, resulting in the May 2007 premiere of Lily Loves, a line of dresses, shoes, and accessories sold through New Look.[21] Allen is currently working with Future Cut on a second album but has avoided mentioning details about it, stating that "that's a mistake a lot of people make these days, when they have a successful first album, and then the record company pushes them into rushing a second one."[22]

[edit] Controversies

Allen has been the subject of many controversies, mainly because of her expressed opinions of other musicians. She went to private school with Luke Pritchard of The Kooks, made some disparaging comments about them, and then covered their song "Naïve" on Jo Whiley's Live Lounge to show there were "no hard feelings". She has also called Bob Geldof a "cunt"[23] and a "sanctimonious prat",[24] and has claimed that Kylie Minogue performing at the Glastonbury Festival would be the ultimate insult to the event.[25] She had previously said on Radio 1 that she loved Chris Moyles, but then remarked, after being invited on his show, that he was too self-obsessed in the presence of his guests. She also had a biff in Australia at Big Day Out in February 2007 with the band Jet claiming in her Myspace blog that she threw a beer bottle at drummer Chris Cester's head when he flicked a cigarette at her after she "wound" him the wrong way.


Rapper Example has recorded a new version of "Smile" called "Vile", which is an answer song written from the perspective of the ex-boyfriend (although he was never actually Allen's boyfriend[26]). Both songs were then parodied by Chris Moyles on his Radio 1 breakfast show in a song called "Piles". Rapper Sway DaSafo has recorded an answer song to "LDN".

When asked by the NME how she would celebrate if her debut single, "Smile", got to Number 1 in the UK charts, she responded "gak" (a slang term for cocaine). She immediately said that she was joking, but the "gak" remark was widely quoted in the tabloid press. Allen has since apologised for the remark.[27][28] She has also stated that she was a drug dealer when she was 15 years old and living in Ibiza.[29]

She also said that everyone that bought Paris Hilton's debut album should be killed off.[30]


She has also been called a Mockney.[31]

[edit] Reaction

Allen has been the subject of both strong positive and negative reactions. She was included on the NME Cool List for 2006, but she complained in her blog that the treatment was "fucking patronising". She was voted the third coolest person of the year, ahead of the likes of Gerard Way (eighth) and Jarvis Cocker (fourth).[32] She ranked "Number One Reason to Love '07"[33] and "Hottest Woman of Pop/R&B."[34] in Blender magazine. On the other hand, she was also rated number 10 in BBC Three's Most Annoying Person of 2006.

[edit] Award history

  • BRIT Awards
    • 2007, Best British Single: "Smile" (Nominated)
    • 2007, Best British Album: Alright, Still (Nominated)
    • 2007, Best British Female (Nominated)
    • 2007, Best British Breakthrough Act: "Smile" (Nominated)
  • NME Awards
    • 2007, Worst Dressed (Won)
    • 2007, Best Solo Artist (Nominated)
    • 2007, Sexiest Woman (Nominated)
    • 2007, Worst Album: Alright, Still (Nominated)

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

Album information
Alright, Still

[edit] Singles

Year Song UK IE NZ DE AU ES FR RU PL US BR Album
2006 "Smile" 1 6 6 67 14 15 16 13 1 49 72 Alright, Still
"LDN" 6 21 23 — 39 — — 43 41 — —
"Littlest Things" 21 — — — — — — 98 23 — —
2007 "Shame for You"/"Alfie" 15 31 15 — — — — — — — —

[edit] Demos

  • "Truth" (played in "My Second Mixtape")
  • "Oh My God" (cover of the Kaiser Chiefs track, played in "My Second Mixtape"; commercially released on Mark Ronson's second album, Version)
  • "Sunday Morning" (produced prior to her record contract with Regal, and uploaded to her MySpace, as it was being considered for the album - now on the B-Side to Littlest Things renamed 'U Killed It'
  • "Friday Night (Remix)" (also known as "You're Gonna Get Burned")
  • "Blank Expression" (exclusive iTunes track 12 of Alright, Still album, a Specials cover)
  • "Naïve" (cover of The Kooks track, played in Live Lounge)

[edit] Features

  • Allen is the featuring artist on the Jamie T song "Rawhide", which is the B-side for the re-release of "Sheila".

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Guest List: Lily Allen". Pitchfork Media. April 25, 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2007.
  2. ^ Barratt, Nick. "Family detective". The Daily Telegraph. May 19, 2007. Retrieved June 23, 2007.
  3. ^ "'The Comic Strip Presents...' The Yob (1988)". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved June 25, 2007.
  4. ^ a b Walker, Andrew. "Faces of the week". BBC News. July 21, 2006. Retrieved June 23, 2007.
  5. ^ "Flowered up". The Guardian. June 23, 2007. Retrieved June 25, 2007.
  6. ^ "Lily Allen Admits to Giving a Blowjob and Getting Expelled. We Love Her!". Rolling Stone. May 24, 2007. Retrieved June 25, 2007.
  7. ^ Phares, Heather. "Lily Allen > Biography". All Music Guide. 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2007.
  8. ^ "Elizabeth (1998) - Full cast and crew". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved June 25, 2007.
  9. ^ a b c d e Sawyer, Miranda. "Pictures of lily". The Observer. May 21, 2006. Retrieved from Guardian Unlimited June 23, 2007.
  10. ^ a b Swift, Jacqui. "Lily: I'm a gobby bitch". The Sun. Retrieved June 23, 2007.
  11. ^ a b Salmon, Chris. "Me, my dad and Dumbo". The Guardian. September 22, 2006. Retrieved June 23, 2007.
  12. ^ a b Sisson, Patrick. "Lily Allen: Mighty Aphrodite". URB, issue 143. March 29, 2007. Retrieved June 23, 2007.
  13. ^ a b c d e Plagenhoef, Scott. "Interview: Lily Allen". Pitchfork Media. November 6, 2006. Retrieved June 24, 2007.
  14. ^ "Lily Allen announces tour". NME. July 26, 2006. Retrieved June 25, 2007.
  15. ^ "Secret of Lily's Smile". The Sun. Retrieved June 25, 2007.
  16. ^ "Lily Allen - Smile: Charts". Music Square. Retrieved June 25, 2007.
  17. ^ Boden, Sarah. "Lily Allen, LDN". The Observer Music Monthly. April 23, 2006. Retrieved June 27, 2007.
  18. ^ "Lily Allen - LDN: Charts". Music Square. Retrieved June 27, 2007.
  19. ^ Harris, Chris. "Norah Jones Breaks McPheever, Beats 'Idol' Runner-Up To #1". MTV News. February 7, 2007. Retrieved June 30, 2007.
  20. ^ "Alright, Still > Charts & Awards > Billboard Singles". All Music Guide. Retrieved June 30, 2007.
  21. ^ Croft, Claudia. "Lily's new look". The Sunday Times. April 22, 2007. Retrieved June 24, 2007.
  22. ^ Montgomery, James. "Lily Allen Says Alcoholism Rumor Is 'Just Another One Of Those Lies'". MTV News. June 20, 2007. Retrieved June 22, 2007.
  23. ^ Allen, Lily. Lily Allen MySpace Profile. Retrieved on 2006-07-24.
  24. ^ (2006-06-17) Transmission with T-Mobile [TV-Show].
  25. ^ Allen Slams Kylie Glastonbury Appearance (2006-07-12).
  26. ^ Allen, Lily. Untitled Forum Post. Retrieved on 2006-07-28.
  27. ^ "Lily Allen: 'Cocaine Celebration Comment Was A Joke'.", FemaleFirst.co.uk, 2006-07-19. Retrieved on 2006-08-03. 
  28. ^ Allen, Lily. Hey Everyone. Retrieved on 2006-08-03.
  29. ^ "Lily Allen admits to drug dealing.", NME.com, 2006-12-06. Retrieved on 2007-03-08. 
  30. ^ Taylor, Chris (2006-12-30). Lily Allen: Paris Hilton Fans Should Be Killed. Entertainmentwise. Retrieved on 2007-04-29.
  31. ^ Sullivan, Caroline. "Lily Allen", The Guardian, 2006-05-13. Retrieved on 2007-02-24. 
  32. ^ Mike Diver (2006-11-23). Lily Allen: angry at "f*cking patronising" magazine.
  33. ^ "25 Reasons to Love '07", Blender Magazine Online, Jan/Feb 2007. Retrieved on 2007-02-03. 
  34. ^ "Hottest Women of...Pop/R&B!", Blender Magazine Online, Jan/Feb 2007. Retrieved on 2007-02-09. 

[edit] External links

Interviews