My 2 favorite Lily Allen songs

I really enjoyed Lily Allen's "Alright, Still" album for two main reasons. The first reason is that even though the sound of the album is bubble-gum pop (with a hit of hip-hop & reggae influence), the lyrics were edgy.

The second reason is because of the story behind how her album got released. She was signed and her label wanted to send her to the "hit factory" and work with big songwriters & producers to become a manufactured star. Lily refused and instead recorded her own songs and posted them on her myspace page. She got such a following in England that her myspace songs were getting radio play and her label let her release her music her way.

It's good to see that musical integrity still means something to some people. Could you imagine how much better the quality of music being released by these record labels would be if the artists & people had the power (like in this case)? The unfortunate thing is that most artists don't have the luxury to take this stand cause they need the label to support them if they still want to eat. Lily is the daughter of actor/musician Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen, so she probably didn't need to be a slave to her record label. That still doesn't make her standing up to her record label any less credible in my eyes.

Now that you're up on why I liked this album so much here's some songs so you can see if you'll enjoy it. I'm going to share my two favorite songs from her 2006 "Alright, Still" cd.

DJ Safe's 1st Favorite) LDN

I love how this song sounds so beautiful & upbeat, but if you listen to the lyrics it speaks of how things look great at first glance, but if you look closer you can see things for what they really are.

"When you look with your eyes, everything seems nice
But if you look twice, you can see it's all lies..."

This song describes what Lily sees in London (aka LDN), but really could be applied to almost anywhere. This video gives great visuals of what she describes in the song.



DJ Safe's 2nd Favorite) Alfie

Here's a song that sounds like it could be the music to a Disneyland ride until you listen to the lyrics. Everyone's had a friend that is a weed-head and smokes too much, so almost everyone can relate to this song. That person in Lily's life is her brother, Alfie.

Here's her song trying to talk to Alfie to get him to stop smoking and get out of the house. Though her brother didn't appreciate the song too much (I read that he broke a laptop computer when he first heard the song), I'm glad that she shared it with the rest of us.

Like the LDN video this video offers great visuals of the story that she's describing in the song.