Lily Allen

Lily Rose Allen (born 2 May, 1985) is a pop artist from England signed to Regal/Parlophone (EMI), and known for songs such as "Smile" and "LDN". She is the daughter of actor/comedian Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. Her official debut single "Smile" reached #1 on the UK singles charts in July 2006.

Early life

Allen was born in Hammersmith, London; her parents separated when she was 4 years old, which resulted in her moving around, eventually settling in Islington. She has an older sister Sarah and a little brother Alfie Owen-Allen. Between the ages of 5 to 14, she attended 13 different schools, including the fee-paying, private schools Hill House and, notably the exclusive Bedales, famous for being in the top five most expensive schools in the UK.. In Ibiza she met A&R man and former Audio Bullys manager, George Lamb who introduced her to music producers Future Cut who wrote backing tracks, after having read lyrics she had written.

Regal Records & MySpace

Following a short-lived deal with Warner Music signed in 2002 previous to releasing any music (which she states was in no small part due to the influence of her father) in late 2005 Allen signed to Regal Records (part of Parlophone/EMI). Despite (alleged) resistance from the label who wanted to send her off to "hit factories" to record her album, she uploaded the tracks she had written (songs that had her signed in the first place) to community website MySpace in November 2005, regularly updating the growing number of visitors with the latest developments in her life. More and more people discovered her profile with links to her tracks being e-mailed around universities and offices eventually reaching UK music publication NME, reviews site musicOMH.com and online music blog Popjustice. These publications all gave her and her demo tracks positive reviews and publicity. Following this exposure way ahead of the proposed album release date, The Observer published a short report on Allen and soon after the demo of her track "LDN" was played on BBC Radio One by DJ Jo Whiley. Because of the buzz generated her release dates were changed and "LDN" was released - on limited edition 7" vinyl only - as Allen's first single on 24 April 2006. This was accompanied by album track Knock 'Em Out on the B-side. She also took a spot at the Notting Hill Arts Club in London in early May, performing every Thursday night for 4 weeks.

Alright, Still

Lil's debut album Alright, Still was released as a strictly limited edition 12" vinyl in the UK on 3 July 2006, with the full CD release released in the UK and Europe on 17 July 2006.

A track entitled "Nan, You're A Window Shopper" (a parody of 50 Cent's "Window Shopper") which Allen performs live and was available on her MySpace page was intended to feature on the album but was not included because the sample could not be cleared in time to meet the new release date. The track entitled Friday Night was co-written with Jonny Bull former guitarist and producer of Britpop band Rialto at his studio in south-west Portugal.

Discography

Albums

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