Lily Allen

Lily Allen was born in Hammersmith, London, to Keith Allen (Welsh comedian, actor, singer and songwriter) and film producer Alison Owen. She and her family eventually settled in the North London borough of Islington. Allen dropped out of school at 15 after appearing as a lady-in-waiting in the 1998... More

Lily Allen was born in Hammersmith, London, to Keith Allen (Welsh comedian, actor, singer and songwriter) and film producer Alison Owen. She and her family eventually settled in the North London borough of Islington. Allen dropped out of school at 15 after appearing as a lady-in-waiting in the 1998 film Elizabeth, produced by her mother, and she met her first manager, George Lamb, when he saved her from several assailants. However she was rejected by several labels, which she attributed to her drinking and being the daughter of Keith Allen. She eventually used her father's connections to get signed to Warner Music in 2002, but when the executive who had signed her left, the label lost interest and she left without releasing the folk songs they had presented her.

 

Allen rose to fame after creating an account on MySpace, where she began posting demos in November 2005. Her demos attracted thousands of listeners, and 500 limited edition vinyl singles of "LDN" were rush-released. Allen also produced two mixtapes to promote her work; they includeded tracks by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Dizzee Rascal, and Ludacris. As she accumulated tens on thousands of MySpace friends, The Observer Music Monthly, a magazine published in The Observer, took interest. It was after OMM included an article about Allen's success through MySpace that she recieved her first major mainstream coverage, appearing in the magazine's cover story two months later. The success of her songs convinved her label to allow her more creative control over the album, using some of the songs she had written instead of attempts to work with mainstream producers.

 

Due to her oft-quoted acidic comments about other stars as well as her fans, 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 "fricking patronising". She was voted the third coolest person of the year in NME Magazine and ranked "Number One Reason to Love '07" as well as "Hottest Woman of Pop/R&B." in Blender Magazine. On the other hand, she was also rated number 10 in BBC Three's Most Annoying Person of 2006.