Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Lily Allen · S2 E4
The Hype
NME, tabloids, and a fame machine she didn't ask to start
T in the Park festival, Scotland, July 2006. Lily Allen gets the news that "Smile" has gone to number one, gets hammered, and starts going up to every indie boy backstage: "I'm number one and none of you are!"
Amy Winehouse, Jools' Annual Hootenanny (December 31, 2006). The same broadcast Lily Allen appeared on. Two women, both working with Mark Ronson, both about to become the biggest names in British music.
Pictures of Lily
On May 20, 2006, the Observer Music Monthly publishes a cover story called "Pictures of Lily" by Miranda Sawyer. It is the moment the broadsheet press anoints her as something more than an internet novelty. Six months earlier, nobody at her label returned journalists' calls about her.
“I was hammered and going up to all these boys in bands who were all skinny jeans and haircuts and I was saying, "I'm number one and none of you are!" They all fucking hated me!”
— Lily Allen, NZ Herald, on hearing Smile hit number one
TAP TO REVEAL: The cocaine quote that almost ended her US career
Bush Hall, Shepherd's Bush, London
Days after hitting number one, Lily plays this intimate 400-capacity Edwardian dance hall. She comes on at 9:30pm in a puffball dress with a fanfare from her brass section. The audience already knows every lyric.
The Hype by the Numbers
Take What You Take
From Alright, Still (2006). A deep cut about detachment and resignation, accepting what comes without fighting it. Buried in the album that launched the hype machine, this quieter track captures the moment before everything accelerates beyond control.
What song did "Smile" knock off the UK number-one spot in July 2006?
Four BRIT nominations, a number-one single, a Grammy nomination, and paparazzi outside her door every morning. Next episode: the label that almost let her slip away, and the tiny deal that launched a pop career.
0 XP earned this session