Lily Allen - Alright, Still (Japanese Edition) (2006)

At some point soon, the internet-fueled superstar thing will no longer constitute a valid story angle. In the past four years, we've already seen pretty much every possible permutation of how empty keystrokes can beget real numbers. The most infamous examples are just that because they're neatly illustrative of how the net has swiftly undermined the machinations of the traditional system. The cases of Dizzee Rascal, Wilco, and the Arctic Monkeys alone serve as poetic reconsiderations of the practices of entire major label departments (A&R, distribution, and marketing, respectively). The only wing still standing? Publicity. Enter Lily Allen.

For all its ubiquity, MySpace had yet to yield a definitive zero-to-hero prior to Allen, but with "Smile" landing at the #1 spot on the UK singles chart a few weeks back, that's neither here nor there anymore. Since Allen started uploading a mixture of radio-ready originals, nervy covers, and links to blognerd-ready mixtapes to her MySpace page late last year, the 21-year old's profile has grown wilder than a Malcolm Gladwell ringlet. To date, she's racked up 550,000 page views, a recording contract with Parlophone/EMI, and, like her father (British actor/comedian and sometime football anthem dilettante Keith Allen) before her, a #1.

But to say that Alright, Still is interesting because it's an accomplished mainstream pop debut made by somebody who started out with broadband and an internet addiction is perhaps too facile a reading. The other day a friend was talking about a development unique to this era-- the differences between peoples' carefully cultivated online personas and their real-life selves. One might inform the other, or reject it, or reform it, or cannibalize it completely, but there's always a push/pull at the center, and the task of managing and reconciling all that on a personal level is a relatively new thing. It's just a hunch, but I think maybe one of the bonus reasons Alright, Still is compelling is because it inadvertently makes gestures to that whole phenomenon. It's a through-the-looking-glass trajectory that begins with a MySpacer who's got great tunes, good stories, and a funny way with commas, and it ends with a slickly produced pop album that isn't all that far apart from pretty much any other UK female pop singer in terms of packaging and presentation. Somewhere between those two points is truth, somewhere behind it all is real-life messiness, and I think people are enjoying figuring it out, not to mention having another familiar co-ordinate from which to put it all together.