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Lily Allen · S2 E1
The Upload
A bedroom recording hits the internet and the internet hits back
November 2005. Lily Allen opens a laptop, uploads four demos to MySpace, and waits. Within weeks, 10,000 strangers a week are requesting to be her friend.
Smile, Lily Allen (2006). The first song she ever writes, uploaded to MySpace in November 2005 and released as a single in July 2006. It goes straight to number one. Lily hires thugs to destroy her ex-boyfriend's life while she smiles into the camera.
The Platform
In 2005, Rupert Murdoch pays 580 million dollars for MySpace. By January 2006, the site signs up 200,000 new users per day. Profiles are customizable with raw HTML: auto-playing music, neon cursors, tiled wallpapers.
“I started getting huge amounts of messages and fan requests, and at first I didn't realize it was anything special. I just assumed the same thing was happening for everyone else.”
— Lily Allen, Chicago Tribune, October 2006
The Numbers
By April 2006, five months after the upload: 40,000 MySpace friends and roughly one million downloads. Regal Recordings rush-presses 500 copies of "LDN" on 7-inch vinyl. They sell out instantly and resell for 40 pounds each.
TAP TO REVEAL: The Arctic Monkeys comparison everyone gets wrong
Friday Night
From Alright, Still (2006). A song about getting wasted on a Friday night and regretting nothing. The sound of the girl who spent ninety minutes every morning accepting MySpace friend requests and then went out and lived the life she was blogging about.
What happened when Regal Recordings rush-pressed 500 copies of "LDN" on 7-inch vinyl?
Forty thousand strangers know her name and the label is finally paying attention. Next episode: the song that made London sound the way London feels.
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