SONG OF THE DAY

“Smile” by Lily Allen (Alright, Still, Regal Records, 2006). Written by Allen, Iyiola Babalola, Darren Lewis, Jackie Mittoo, & Clement Dodd.

HOW DID I FIND IT?

An episode of Glee, of course!

INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)

– This song samples “Free Soul” by The Soul Brothers.

– In 2006, she began to work on completing what would be her first studio album and its first mainstream single “Smile” reached the top position on the UK Singles Chart in July 2006. 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.

– 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” nominated for the Mercury Prize.

– Allen claims to have grown up with her mother in a working class environment, living in a council house environment for most of her childhood. This seems at odds with the fact that she attended some of the UK’s costliest public schools; Allen attended 13 schools in all, including Prince Charles’s junior alma mater, Hill House School, Millfield, Bedales School, and a primary school in Leixlip, Ireland, and was expelled from several of them for drinking and smoking.

– When Allen was 11, former University of Victoria music student Rachel Santesso overheard Allen singing Wonderwall by Oasis in the schools playground; impressed, Santesso, who would later become an award-winning soprano and composer, called Allen into her office the next day and started giving her lunchtime singing lessons. This would lead to Allen singing” Baby Mine” from Disney’s Dumbo at a school concert. Allen would tell Loveline that the audience was brought to tears at the sight of a troubled young girl doing something good.

– Allen was rejected by several labels, which she attributed to her drinking and being the daughter of Keith Allen. Lily eventually used her father’s connections to get signed to London Records a part of the Warner Music in 2002. When the executive who had signed her left, the label lost interest and she left without releasing the folk songs written by her father that she was working on recording.

– 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 Coldplay’s X&Y and Gorillaz’s Demon Days.

– Allen created an account on MySpace and began posting demos in November 2005.The demos attracted thousands of listeners, and 500 limited edition 7″ vinyl singles of “LDN” were rush-released, reselling for as much as £40. In March 2006, OMM included an article about Allen’s success through MySpace. She received her first major mainstream coverage, appearing in the magazine’s cover story two months later. Allen’s songs have been downloaded from her MySpace page 19 million times. As of 9 February 2009, Allen had 448,000 MySpace friends. She was the fifth most popular musical act of 2008.

-  Allen’s debut album, Alright, Still, was released as a limited-edition 12″ vinyl in the UK on 3 July 2006; the full CD release followed in the UK and the rest of Europe on 17 July 2006. 

– Allen won a 2008 BMI songwriting award for “Smile”.

– In April 2008, Allen said she was heading in a “new direction.” She posted two new song demos on her MySpace page and planned to release a mixtape to give her fans an idea of what the new direction was. Allen said the new direction was undertaken because: “I did a retro thing last time, and since I did that, a lot of other people did it too. I wanted to separate myself from the group and move forward.”

– On Allen’s website, there are remixes of songs by fans who have been allowed access to individual parts of the songs.

– According to the British music website Last.fm Allen was the third most listened to artist, and the most listened to British artist in 2009 on its site.

– Rapper Common has also collaborated with Allen on the track “Drivin’ Me Wild” from his seventh album Finding Forever.

– On 30 June 2008, Allen and Klaxons singer Jamie Reynolds announced they were working on a new song and had completed a cover of Joe Jackson’s “Steppin Out.”

– On 12 December 2008, Mark Ronson premièred Allen’s cover version of Britney Spears’ song “Womanizer” on his East Village radio show. Allen in her MySpace blog said Ronson was supposed to “talk all over it so it wouldn’t get ripped.” Instead Ronson played the song in its entirety and the cover within days had been heard worldwide causing Allen to get into “serious trouble” with her label.

– In September 2009 she shut down her My Space account and stopped social networking completely in December due to the abuse she was taking. Also in September 2009, Allen announced that she is considering a career in acting and that she will not renew her record contract. In a blog, her last before taking it down, Allen wrote that she has “no plans” to make another record. “The days of me making money from recording music have been and gone as far as I’m concerned”. After a scheduled March 2010 Allen is scheduled to take a performance hiatus of at least two years. During this period she will work on a launching her own record label.

– In May 2007, Allen launched a line of dresses, shoes, and accessories entitled Lily Loves.

– Allen is reported to enjoy a “special relationship” with Chanel that is said to include borrowing clothes and jewelery and being flown in to sit in the front row of their shows. Karl Lagerfeld, the head designer for the company personally hired and photographed Allen for a campaign to promote a luxury line of handbags due to launch in September 2009.

– Allen won the 2008 Glamour Women of the Year Awards “Editors Special Award.” Allen was nominated for a Highstreet Fashion Award in the category of “Best Dressed Celebrity.” In a readers poll for the weekly British style magazine Look, Allen was named the ninth best style role model. Allen has been described by the UK edition of Elle Magazine as a person who is not overly trendy in her fashion choices.

– Due to her outspokenness, Allen has been the subject of many controversies. Disparaging remarks about musicians Luke Pritchard of The Kooks, Bob Geldof, Amy Winehouse, Kylie Minogue, and Katy Perry have all garnered minor press attention.

– Allen has been named the face of the National Portrait Gallery as part of the gallery’s marketing campaign. The picture was photographed by Nadav Kander, and emblazoned with the words, “Vocalist, Lyricist, Florist” .

– 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).

– The album performed similarly worldwide, selling a total of nearly two million copies.

– Two weeks after its American release, Alright, Still debuted at #20 on the U.S. Billboard 200, and it remained on the chart for twenty-four weeks.

– The Recording Industry Association of America awarded the album a gold certification for shipping 500,000 copies.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Click here for the video!