Lily Allen

Facts about Lily Allen

Date of Birth:	02 May 1985
Birthplace:	Hammersmith, London
Age:	25
First Name:	Lily
Middle Name:	Rose Beatrice
Last Name:	Allen
Build:	Slim
Height:	5' 2" (157 cm)
Eye Color:	Brown - Dark
Hair Color:	Brown - Dark
Star Sign:	Taurus
Claim to Fame:	Smile
Occupation:	Singer,songwriter & talk show host
Religion:	Christian
Occupation Category:	Singer
Nationality:	English
Music Genre:	Pop, Pop/Rock
Music Tags:	Adult Alternative Pop/ Rock
Music Style:	Alternative/ Indie Rock, Contemporary Pop/Rock
Music Mood:	Amiable/Good-Natured, Carefree, Cheerful, Confident, Detached, Exuberant, Fun, Hypnotic, Ironic, Laid-Back/Mellow, Literate, Playful, Sexy, Stylish, Summery, Witty
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Biography for Lily Allen

Lily Rose Beatrice Allen (born 2 May 1985 (27 years ago)) is an English recording artist, talk show host, and actress. She is the daughter of actor and musician Keith Allen and movie producer Alison Owen. Her teenage years comprised her evolution in musical tastes, from glam rock to alternative. She ran 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 compositional skills. Afterwards, she created several demo songs, and near the end of 2005 (7 years ago), she created a profile on MySpace, where she made some of her recordings public.

A contract was signed with the label Regal Recordings, as the views on MySpace rose to tens of thousands. In 2006 (6 years ago), 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 Jul. 2006 (6 years ago). 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 album 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 #1 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 (3 years ago) that has seen five female artists making music of "experimentalism and fearlessness" long nominated for the Mercury Prize. In sep. 2009 (3 years ago), Allen stated that she sees no way that she could ever make a profit making new records. She said that she has no plans to make another album and she is not renewing her record contract. Allen will take a two year break from performing starting in Mar. 2010 (2 years ago) to launch a record label and open a fashion rental shop.

Early years

Allen was born in Hammersmith, west London, daughter of Welsh-born comedian and actor Keith Allen and English, Portsmouth-born, movie producer Alison Owen. Her family settled in the North London borough of Islington. She has an older sister, Sarah; a younger brother, Alfie Owen-Allen (who was the subject of her song "Alfie"); and a younger sister Rebecca. She has a number of half-siblings. Allen lived for a while with comedian Harry Enfield while her mother dated him. She is the god-daughter of Wild Colonials vocalist Angela McCluskey. The late Clash singer and guitarist Joe Strummer is also referred to as a godparent; while not literally true, Strummer was close to Allen. Allen has fond memories of the week and a half they would spend together at Glastonbury as part of a regular collective centred on Strummer and her father. Strummer's musical past would not come into focus for Allen until after his death.

In 1988 (24 years ago), at the age of three, Allen appeared on The Comic Strip Presents... episode "The Yob," which her father had co-written. When Allen was four years old, her father left the family. 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. 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. Allen played piano to grade 5 standard and achieved Grade 8 in singing. She also played violin, guitar and trumpet as well as being a member of a chamber choir. Her first solo was "In the Bleak Midwinter." According to The Sunday Times "the only school that seemed to have a positive impact on her was" Cavendish, an all-girl Christian school located in Camden Town. At Cavendish, Allen "played a boy in a production of The Railway Children and sang 'Baby Mine' from Dumbo."

Allen made an appearance as a lady-in-waiting in the 1998 (14 years ago) movie Elizabeth, co-produced by her mother. 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." After 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 17, Allen became a member of the Groucho Club and in her free time she listened to artists such as The Specials, T.Rex and Happy Mondays.

Discography

• 2006 (6 years ago): Alright, Still
• 2009 (3 years ago): It's Not Me, It's You

Source: en.wikipedia.org

External links to Lily Allen

• Lily Allen Pictures at Music-juice.com
• Lily Allen at PerfectPeople.net
• Lily Allen at Top-Models.com
• Lily Allen Pictures at DevotedPics.com

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