Lily Allen
Lily Rose Beatrice Allen[3] (born 2 May 1985) is an English singer-songwriter and actress.[4] She is the daughter of actor Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. Her musical career began in 2005 when she was signed to Regal Recordings and began publishing her vocal recordings on the social networking site Myspace; their popularity resulted in airplay on BBC Radio 1. Her 2006 debut commercial single, "Smile" reached number one on the UK Singles Chart by July of that year and received double platinum certification by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).[5] Her debut studio album, Alright, Still (2006) explored ska and reggae. It was met with positive critical reception, peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart, and sold over 2.6 million copies worldwide. The album also yielded a Grammy Award nomination for Best Alternative Music Album and spawned the follow up singles "LDN" and "Alfie".
Lily Allen
- Singer
- songwriter
- actress
- author
-
Sam Cooper(m. 2011; div. 2018)
2
- Keith Allen (father)
- Alison Owen (mother)
- Alfie Allen (brother)
- Kevin Allen (uncle)
Vocals
1998–present
Her second studio album, It's Not Me, It's You (2009) saw a genre shift in favor of electropop. The album debuted atop the UK Albums Chart and the Australian ARIA Charts, and saw continued positive reception from critics, many of whom noted the singer's musical evolution and maturity. It spawned the hit singles "The Fear", "Not Fair" and "Fuck You". This success saw her receive the Brit Award for British Female Solo Artist at the 2010 Brit Awards. Allen and Amy Winehouse were credited with starting a process that led to the "year of the women" media label in 2009 that saw five female artists making music of "experimentalism and fearlessness" nominated for the Mercury Prize.[6] Her third album, Sheezus (2014) peaked atop the UK Albums Chart once more, while her fourth album, No Shame (2018) peaked at number eight.
Allen also ventured into other careers; in 2008, she hosted her own television talk show, Lily Allen and Friends, on BBC Three before launching her own record label, In the Name Of, in 2011.[7] In 2018, Allen released her autobiographical book, My Thoughts Exactly.[8] As an actress, Allen appeared in the 2019 film How to Build a Girl. In 2021, she made her West End debut in the new play 2:22 A Ghost Story, for which she received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress.
Early life
Allen was born on 2 May 1985[9] in Hammersmith, West London, the daughter of Keith Allen, a Welsh-born actor, and British film producer Alison Owen.[10] She has an older sister, Sarah; a younger brother, actor Alfie (subject of her song "Alfie"); and a younger sister, Rebecca.[11] Lily Allen's mother was from a devoutly Catholic working-class Portsmouth family, and was 17 when she gave birth to Sarah.[12] Allen is the goddaughter of Wild Colonials vocalist Angela McCluskey[11] and third-cousin of singer Sam Smith.[13]
At the age of three, Allen appeared in The Comic Strip Presents... episode "The Yob",[14] which her father had co-written. When she was four, her father left the family.[15] During her early childhood, Allen lived with her family on a council estate.[16][17] They later settled in Islington. For that time, the family lived with comedian Harry Enfield while her mother dated him. The Clash singer and guitarist Joe Strummer was close to Allen.[18]
Allen attended 13 schools, including King Charles III's junior alma mater, the Independent Hill House School, Millfield, Bedales School[15] and was expelled from several of them for drinking and smoking.[17][19][20] When Allen was eleven, former University of Victoria music student Rachel Santesso overheard Allen singing "Wonderwall" by Oasis in the school's playground; impressed, Santesso, who later became an award-winning soprano and composer, called Allen into her office the next day and started giving her lunchtime singing lessons. This led to Allen singing "Baby Mine" from Disney's Dumbo at a school concert.[21]
Allen told Loveline that the audience was "brought to tears at the sight of a troubled young girl doing something good". At that point Allen said she knew that music was something she needed to do either as a lifelong vocation or to get it out of her system. She played the piano to grade 5 standard and achieved grade 8 in singing. Allen also played violin, guitar and trumpet and was a member of a chamber choir. Her first solo was "In the Bleak Midwinter".[18] In 1998, Allen appeared in the music video to the Fat Les song "Vindaloo". 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."[22]
Music career
2001–2005: Career beginnings
When her family went to Ibiza on holiday, Allen 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 at the age of 15.[22] Allen met her first manager, George Lamb in Ibiza.[22] She first recorded the vocals for "On Me Head Not Off Me Head" written by her father for Mike Bassett: England Manager in 2001,[23] and was featured in the 2002 song by her father's group Fat Les, "Who Invented Fish and Chips".[24] She started to work with music producers, and recorded a demo.[25] 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 London Records in 2002.[26] When the executive who had signed her left, the label lost interest and she left without releasing the folk songs many of which were written by her father.[18][26][25] She then studied horticulture to become a florist, but changed her mind and returned to music. Allen began writing songs, while her manager introduced her to production duo Future Cut in 2004. They worked in a small studio in the basement of an office building.[25]
In 2005, Allen was signed to Regal Recordings; they gave her £25,000 to produce an album, though they were unable to provide much support for it due to their preoccupation with other releases such as X&Y (Coldplay) and Demon Days (Gorillaz).[27] Allen then created an account on Myspace and began posting demos that she recorded in November 2005.[27] The demos attracted thousands of listeners, and 500 limited edition 7-inch vinyl singles of "LDN" were rush-released, reselling for as much as £40.[22][27] Allen also produced two mixtapes – My First Mixtape and My Second Mixtape – to promote her work. As she accumulated tens of thousands of Myspace friends, The Observer Music Monthly (OMM), a magazine published in The Observer, took interest in March 2006.[22] 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.[27] She received her first major mainstream coverage, appearing in the magazine's cover story two months later.
Acting career
Stage
In June 2021, Allen announced that she would be playing the lead role of Jenny in the West End play 2:22 A Ghost Story at the Noël Coward Theatre from 3 August 2021. The play, directed by Matthew Dunster and written by Danny Robins saw Allen debut in August 2021.[102][103][4] Reviewing the play for The Independent, Annabel Nugent wrote, "Allen is superb as Jenny. Exhaustion thrums a fraction below her palpable fear – just visible enough in her performance to have you questioning Jenny's version of events".[104] In 2022, she received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress,[105] and also won a WhatsOnStage Award for her performance.[106]
In 2023, Allen starred in The Pillowman, staged at the Duke of York's Theatre, London. Allen's performance received mixed reviews by critics.[107][108][109]
Screen
Allen made an appearance as a lady-in-waiting in the 1998 film Elizabeth, which was co-produced by her mother. She later appeared as Elizabeth Taylor in How to Build a Girl in July 2019, alongside her brother Alfie.[110]
In April 2023, Allen starred alongside Freema Agyeman in Sharon Horgan's comedy-drama Dreamland for Sky Max. It was developed from a short starring Morgana Robinson that aired in 2017.[111][112]
Other ventures
Allen signed a one series contract to present her own BBC Three TV show titled Lily Allen and Friends based on the social networking phenomenon that helped to launch her music career.[113][114][115] Guests included Mark Ronson, Joanna Page, James Corden, Lauren Laverne, Róisín Murphy, Louis Walsh, and Danny Dyer.[116] The show attracted only 2 per cent of the total multi-channel audience despite a high-profile nationwide marketing campaign.[117] Citing Allen's rapid development as a TV host and her popularity among its target audience BBC Three announced it was renewing Lily Allen and Friends for a second season.[118] BBC Three controller Danny Cohen later said that the show would not air in the spring of 2009 as originally scheduled because of music commitments.[119]
In 2009, Allen was named the face of the National Portrait Gallery as part of the gallery's marketing campaign.[120] The picture was photographed by Nadav Kander emblazoned with the words, "vocalist, lyricist, florist".[121] Karl Lagerfeld, the head designer for Chanel personally hired and photographed Allen for a campaign to promote a luxury line of handbags due to launch in September 2009.[122][123] Allen and her sister opened their own clothing store titled "Lucy in Disguise" on 15 September 2010. Allen did not entirely abandon music during this period, in which she focused on starting her family. In January 2011, she launched her own record label, In the Name Of, with financial backing from Sony Music. The label released the debut album of Tom Odell. The label closed in 2014.[124] In May 2016, Allen announced the launch of her second record label, Bank Holiday Records. British-American R&B singer Celeste was one of the first artists to sign to the label.[125]
On 20 September 2018, Allen published the memoir My Thoughts Exactly with Blink Publishing. It was nominated for the FutureBook Campaign of the Year.[126] The book is one of seven chosen by the Evening Standard as the "best celebrity memoirs of 2018".[127] It is one of nine books listed under the "Showbusiness" category of The Guardian's best books of 2018.[128]
In October 2020, Allen worked with the sex tech company Womanizer to create her own sex toy called "Liberty", a clitoral pump.[129] She is the chief liberation officer at Womanizer and is heading up their #IMasturbate campaign which encourages women to embrace their own sexuality.[130] Liberty was positively reviewed in The Independent and Mashable.[131][132] The product sucks and massages the clitoris without making direct contact, using sonic waves to induce sexual pleasure.[131] It is waterproof and has six different intensity levels.[133] Allen had previously recommended Womanizer's products in her autobiography My Thoughts Exactly.[134][135]
In 2024, Alen began hosting a twice-weekly BBC Sounds podcast, Miss Me?, with her lifelong friend Miquita Oliver.[136]
Artistry
Allen's early released songs saw her singing against retro productions.[29] Her songs also featured other elements, such as the ska influence on second single, "LDN". She was also noted for her liberal use of crude words in her lyrics.[210] Allen has said she cringes now when listening to tracks from Alright, Still, as it reminds her that she was a "sort of over-excitable teenager who desperately wanted attention" when she wrote it.[18] Wanting to move on from the retro sound that many other artists had adapted since her debut, Allen ventured in a new direction sonically and lyrically in her second studio album, It's Not Me, It's You. "The Fear", the first single from the album, is an electro-pop track denouncing consumerism.[211][212][213] Her new musical direction and willingness to write lyrics that tackled less-common subjects were lauded by some critics.[58][214]
Allen's song "Who'd Have Known" was sampled in T-Pain's single "5 O'Clock" because of her accent.[215][216]
Joe Strummer, a close friend of Allen's father Keith, played mixtapes of Brazilian music and Jamaican reggae and ska when she was young. Allen stated that she had "always been into very black music" such as ska, reggae, and hip hop music. Since she did not know how to rap, she chose to use reggae as a point of reference when making Alright, Still.[217] The album's music blends ska and reggae with pop melodies.[218] Allen's melodies are influenced by the jazz improvisation techniques of American singers Blossom Dearie and Ella Fitzgerald.[219] The album's beats are influenced by various genres such as jazz and grime.[220] Singers Lady Gaga,[221] Tegan and Sara,[222] Bridgit Mendler,[223] Jullie[224] and Victoria Justice[225] have each been influenced by Allen.