Lily Rose Beatrice Allen (born 2 May 1985) is an English
recording artist, talk show host and actress. The daughter of actor and musician Keith Allen and film producer
Alison Owen, she had a challenging childhood, without a stable residence and had been a pupil in thirteen different school institutions until the age of fifteen.
Her teenage years comprised her evolution in musical tastes, from glam rock to alternative, having run away from home to attend the Glastonbury Festival at the age of fourteen. A year later, Allen abandoned school and concentrated on improving her performing and comsposite skills. She,
afterwards, created several demo songs, and near the end of 2005, she made a
profile on MySpace, where she made public some of her recordings. A contract was signed with the label
Regal Recordings, as the views on MySpace rose to tens of thousands. In
2006, work began on completing what would be the first studio
album of the singer, and its first mainstream single, titled "Smile", earned the top position on the UK Singles Chart, while her debut record,
Alright, Still, was well received on the international market, selling
over 2.6 million copies and brought Allen a nomination at the Grammy Awards, BRIT Awards and MTV Video Music Awards. She then began hosting her own talk-show,
Lily Allen and Friends, on BBC Three. Her second major release,
It's Not Me, It's You, saw a genre shift for her, having more of an electropop feel, rather than the ska and reggae influences of the first one. The
album debuted at the number one position on the UK Albums Chart and the
Australian ARIA Charts and was appreciated by the critics, noting the
singer's musical evolution and maturity. It spawned the hit singles "The Fear" and "Fuck
You", popular mostly in Europe. Allen and
Amy
Winehouse have been credited with starting a process that led to the
media-proclaimed "year of the women" in 2009 that has seen five female artists making music of "experimentalism and fearlessness long" nominated for the Mercury Prize.
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