6. She Writes All Her Own music And Is Not Afraid To Be Different
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr2Grfi3lFg British female artists tend to go two distinct ways in the last ten years. They can ascend to greatness like Adele and Amy Whitehouse or suffer badly from second album syndrome and fade away like Little Boots, Duffy, and Pixie Lott (present comeback pending). Lily Allen seems to be fitting firmly in the former. Certainly as a pure pop music performer she probably offers the most consistent track record in crafting pop singles and albums of any of her immediate pop contemporaries. Like Adele and the sadly missed Amy Whitehouse Lily is recorded as being a writer on every track of all her albums. She has co-written successful songs for other artists such as 'True Love' for Pink. She has received three Ivor Novello awards including two for songwriting. This is not a woman playing at songwriting and certainly not getting credits for chipping in a few words at the lyric stage. She is a bonafide song writing master with two three-time platinum albums under her belt. What sets her apart from the crowd, even exceeding Adele on this criteria, is the range of her songwriting. Whilst Adele and Amy Winehouse largely mine the lost love/failed relationship subject area Lily has been on a tour de force of song writing subjects. Never afraid to be controversial and never failing to be straight on the money with her lyrics she has covered the myth of London (LDN), bad sex (It's Not Fair), her own media career (The Fear) and even the laziness of her brother (Alfie). Given the said Alfie is now a major television star in Game of Thrones, this may serve as the first example of a pop song being a firm but successful kick in the backside! So capable of writing great songs, successful songs, award winning songs and lyrically diverse songs. Sounds like a British icon to me.