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Lily Allen · S3 E8
The BRIT Awards
Recognition, rivalry, and a night she'll never forget
Earls Court Exhibition Centre, London, Valentine's Day, 2007. Lily Allen sits at a BRIT Awards table surrounded by the same music industry executives she bypassed with a MySpace page, holding a champagne glass and waiting to hear if the establishment she gate-crashed is going to let her in.
"Angels" -- Robbie Williams, live in Dublin (1999). The performance that captures what Robbie Williams became after leaving Take That. He stands alone on stage and sings the song that will become the most-played track at British funerals. The BRITs are the night British pop decides who matters.
The Industry's Night
The BRIT Awards are British pop music's annual attempt to convince itself it is a meritocracy. The ceremony rewards commercial success and critical favour in roughly equal measure. For Lily Allen, whose entire career has been built on being an outsider, the invitation is both a validation and a contradiction.
TAP TO REVEAL: What actually happened to Lily Allen at the 2007 BRITs?
“Everyone was being really nice to me, the same people who wouldn't return my calls two years ago. That's the music industry. You're nothing until you're something, and then everyone pretends they always believed in you.”
— Lily Allen, on the 2007 BRITs [paraphrased: VERIFY]
The Debut in Numbers
I Could Say -- Lily Allen
From It's Not Me, It's You (2009). A song about biting your tongue and keeping your opinions to yourself, which is the opposite of everything Alright, Still represents. This quiet, conflicted track from the second album previews the emotional shift ahead: from outspoken bravado to something more guarded.
What is the title of Lily Allen's second album?
The debut is over, the awards have been handed out, and the tabloids have their story. But Lily Allen is already writing with Greg Kurstin in Los Angeles, and the songs sound nothing like Alright, Still. Next season: It's Not Me, It's You, beginning with a song called "The Fear" that describes exactly what fame has done to her.
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To be continued
Season 4: It's Not Me, It's You
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