Alright, Still
Encyclopedia
Alright, Still is the debut album
by British
pop
singer-songwriter Lily Allen
, released on 14 July 2006 by Regal Recordings
(see 2006 in music
). Recording the album began with sessions between Allen and production duo Future Cut
, and Allen's work garnered publicity on the Internet as she posted demos to her MySpace
account before they were officially released. The songs are heavily influenced by Jamaica
n ska
music, and their lyrics are conversational and farcical.
The album was released to generally positive reviews among music critics. It was commercially successful in the United Kingdom, having been certified 3× platinum. Alright, Still has sold over 5 million copies worldwide. The album earned a nomination for Best Alternative Music Album at the 50th Grammy Awards
.
in 2004. They worked in a small studio in the basement of a Manchester
office building. In 2005, Allen was signed to Regal Records; the label gave her £
25,000 to produce an album, though they were unable to provide much support for it due to their preoccupation with other releases such as English band Coldplay
's X&Y
and virtual band
Gorillaz
' Demon Days
.
Allen created an account on Myspace
and began posting demos
in November 2005. The demos attracted thousands of listeners, and 500 limited edition 7" vinyl singles of one of the demos, a song titled "LDN
", were rush-released and sold for as much as £40. Allen also produced two mixtape
s — My First Mixtape and My Second Mixtape — to promote her work; they included tracks by the band Creedence Clearwater Revival
, and rapper Dizzee Rascal
, and Ludacris
. As she accumulated tens of thousands of MySpace friends, The Observer Music Monthly (OMM), a magazine published in The Observer
, took interest. Few people outside of her label's A&R
department had heard of Allen, so the label were slow in responding to publications who wanted to report about her.
In March 2006, OMM published an article about Allen's success through MySpace, and she received her first major mainstream coverage appearing in the magazine's cover story two months later. The popularity of her songs convinced her label to allow her more creative control over the album and to use some of the songs that she had written instead of attempting to work with mainstream producers. Allen found herself distracted by the publicity, so to focus on finishing the album, she travelled to the United States to work with producers Greg Kurstin
and Mark Ronson
. There, she was able to complete the second half of the album in approximately two weeks.
The album's title is used in a line from the second track, "Knock 'Em Out": "You look alright still, yeah what's your name?" Allen borrowed the phrase from a slang term that her brother Alfie Owen-Allen
and his friends used as a synonym for cool. She stated that she liked Albert Einstein
's aphorism "Nothing changes until something moves" and the idea that "everything is [alright] as long as it's still".
. In many of the songs, one of Allen's personae disparages someone around her. In "Smile
", "Not Big", and "Shame for You
", she insults an ex-boyfriend. In "Knock 'Em Out", she mocks suitors at a bar, and Lily reprimands her brother Alfie on the song of the same name
.
Joe Strummer
, a close friend of Allen's father Keith, played mixtapes of Brazilian music and Jamaican reggae
and ska when she was young. Allen stated that she had "always been into very black music" such as ska, reggae, and hip hop music
. Since she did not know how to rap
, she chose to use reggae as a point of reference when making Alright, Still. The album's music blends ska and reggae with pop melodies. Allen's melodies are influenced by the jazz improvisation
techniques of American singers Blossom Dearie
and Ella Fitzgerald
. The album's beats are influenced by various genres such as jazz
and grime.
. The Observer
's Rosie Swash stated that Allen's "uniquely acidic brand of pop" music justified the publicity it generated and that "the icing on the cake is that brutally barbed tongue". The newspaper ranked the album tenth on its list of the best albums of 2006. Ron Webb wrote for Drowned in Sound
that the album "is almost a brilliant record, easily a good one and one that promises to divide opinion like Marmite". Uncut
called it "a terrific, bolshy, eclectic stew of London street pop", listing Alright, Still thirty-eighth on its "Definitive Albums of 2006". In a review for The Guardian
, Sophie Heawood stated that "the album is rough round the edges, that amateurism serves to bring the listener in", noting that it gave the album a more personal touch. The Guardian ranked it the seventh best album of the year and commented, "For her lyrical nous and her quick delivery alone, get that toast on." The NME
's Priya Elan remarked that "with a personality this size, this isn't the last time you'll be hearing from [Allen]".
The album generally received positive reviews from international music press. Rob Sheffield
wrote for Rolling Stone
that Allen's sense of irony was "just more proof that [she's] an original". The magazine ranked the album thirteenth on its list of the best albums of 2007. Heather Phares of Allmusic stated that "enough of Alright, Still works — as pure pop and on the meta level Allen aims for — to make the album a fun, summery fling, and maybe more". Praising Allen for her "genuine personality with wit and attitude to spare", Pitchfork Media
's Mark Pytlik remarked that the album "isn't anything else but a fantastic success". Pitchfork called it "one of 2006's most enduringly rewarding pop albums" and listed it as the twenty-ninth best album of 2006. In his review for Blender
, Jon Dolan complimented Allen's "little-sisterly" personality, describing it as a combination "of panache and self-doubt, courage and chaos". At the 2008 Grammy Awards, the album was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album but lost to The White Stripes
' Icky Thump
. Ronson's production on "Littlest Things
" helped him win a Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical
.
On the other hand, Stylus Magazine
called the album "nothing more than pop for people who hate pop music" and "phony music for people who can't let go of their inhibitions," while Slant Magazine
deemed it "rubbish" and called Allen "sickeningly contemptuous."
The mastering of Alright, Still, done by Tim Burrell and Tim Debney, has been criticised. In January 2007, The Guardian ran a piece about loudness war
s, the practice of increasing the loudness of tracks which often results in distortion and the loss of dynamic range
. It included Alright, Still in a list of CDs in which sound quality was compromised for loudness. Rolling Stone published a similar story in December 2007, and it also identified Alright, Still as an album "so unrelentingly loud that the sound is actually distorted".
. The album dropped off the chart after nearly eleven months but reentered the chart twice, spending a total of sixty-nine weeks on the chart. The British Phonographic Industry
certified Alright, Still 3x platinum. On the week ending on 28 January 2007, the top ten places on the UK Albums Chart were filled by British acts for the first time since the chart was established in 1956; Alright, Still was number nine that week. on 14 March 2008 Alright Still was certified 3× platinum by BPI denoting retail shipments of over 900,000 copies, with retail sales close to 1 million in February 2009. In Ireland, the album debuted at number six on the Irish Albums Chart
, and it spent a total of thirty-five weeks on the chart. The Irish Recorded Music Association
certified the album platinum.
The album was less successful on the European mainland. It peaked in the top twenty in Norway
; the top thirty in Belgium
and Denmark
; and the top fifty in Italy
, France
, and Sweden
. Alright, Still sold over one million copies throughout Europe.
The album performed similarly worldwide, selling a total of nearly two million copies. Two weeks after its American release, Alright, Still debuted at number twenty on the U.S. Billboard 200
, and it remained on the chart for twenty-four weeks. The Recording Industry Association of America
awarded the album a gold certification for shipping 500,000 copies. Alright, Still debuted at number seven on the Australian ARIA Albums Chart and spent a total of sixteen weeks on the chart. ARIA awarded the album a platinum certification. In New Zealand, the album debuted at number twenty-six on 31 July 2006 and was certified Gold after nineteen weeks selling over 7,500 copies.
Aramis Riley - Keyboards, Synthezers
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
by British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
singer-songwriter Lily Allen
Lily Allen
Lily Rose Beatrice Cooper , better known as Lily Allen, is an English recording artist and fashion designer. She is the daughter of actor and musician Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. In her teenage years, her musical tastes evolved from glam rock to alternative...
, released on 14 July 2006 by Regal Recordings
Regal Recordings
Regal Recordings is a British record label functioning as an imprint of Parlophone.-Background:Regal Records was a British record label founded in 1914 as a subsidiary of the UK branch of Columbia Records known as Columbia Graphophone Company...
(see 2006 in music
2006 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 2006.-January:*January 10 – Eric Burdon releases his album Soul of a Man and begins touring with a new band....
). Recording the album began with sessions between Allen and production duo Future Cut
Future Cut
Future Cut is the stage name of drum and bass producers Darren Lewis and Tunde Babalola. They share production duties.The duo first met whilst promoting rival Drum 'n' Bass nights in Manchester...
, and Allen's work garnered publicity on the Internet as she posted demos to her MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
account before they were officially released. The songs are heavily influenced by Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
n ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
music, and their lyrics are conversational and farcical.
The album was released to generally positive reviews among music critics. It was commercially successful in the United Kingdom, having been certified 3× platinum. Alright, Still has sold over 5 million copies worldwide. The album earned a nomination for Best Alternative Music Album at the 50th Grammy Awards
50th Grammy Awards
The 50th Annual Grammy Awards took place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, on February 10, 2008. Kanye West received the most nominations, with eight. Amy Winehouse was the big winner, winning a total of five awards. Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters won Album of the Year,...
.
Background
Allen's manager introduced her to production duo Future CutFuture Cut
Future Cut is the stage name of drum and bass producers Darren Lewis and Tunde Babalola. They share production duties.The duo first met whilst promoting rival Drum 'n' Bass nights in Manchester...
in 2004. They worked in a small studio in the basement of a Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
office building. In 2005, Allen was signed to Regal Records; the label gave her £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
25,000 to produce an album, though they were unable to provide much support for it due to their preoccupation with other releases such as English band Coldplay
Coldplay
Coldplay are a British alternative rock band formed in 1996 by lead vocalist Chris Martin and lead guitarist Jonny Buckland at University College London. After they formed Pectoralz, Guy Berryman joined the group as a bassist and they changed their name to Starfish. Will Champion joined as a...
's X&Y
X&Y
X&Y is the third studio album by English rock band Coldplay, released 6 June 2005 in the United Kingdom via the record label Parlophone. The album, which features influences of electronic music, was produced by the band and British record producer Danton Supple...
and virtual band
Virtual band
In music, a virtual band is any group whose members are not corporeal musicians, but animated characters...
Gorillaz
Gorillaz
Gorillaz is an English musical project created in 1998 by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. This project consists of Gorillaz music itself and an extensive fictional universe depicting a "virtual band" of cartoon characters...
' Demon Days
Demon Days
Demon Days is the second studio album by British virtual band Gorillaz, released in May 2005. The album features contributions from De La Soul, Neneh Cherry, Martina Topley-Bird, Roots Manuva, MF DOOM, Ike Turner, Bootie Brown of the Pharcyde, Shaun Ryder, Dennis Hopper, the London Community Gospel...
.
Allen created an account on Myspace
Myspace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
and began posting demos
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
in November 2005. The demos attracted thousands of listeners, and 500 limited edition 7" vinyl singles of one of the demos, a song titled "LDN
LDN (song)
"LDN" is a single by Lily Allen which was released in the UK on 25 September 2006. It was co-written by Future Cut, and features a Colombian porro from the country's Caribbean coast...
", were rush-released and sold for as much as £40. Allen also produced two mixtape
Mixtape
A Mix Tape or Mixed Tape is a compilation of songs recorded in a specific order, traditionally onto an audio Compact Cassette.A Mix Tape, which usually reflects the musical tastes of its compiler, can range from a casually selected list of favorite songs, to a conceptual mix of songs linked by a...
s — My First Mixtape and My Second Mixtape — to promote her work; they included tracks by the band Creedence Clearwater Revival
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Creedence Clearwater Revival was an American rock band that gained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s with a number of successful singles drawn from various albums....
, and rapper Dizzee Rascal
Dizzee Rascal
Dylan Kwabena Mills , better known by his stage name Dizzee Rascal, is a Ghanaian British rapper, songwriter and record producer. His music is a blend of garage, hip hop, grime, ragga, pop and electronic music, with eclectic samples and more exotic styles...
, and Ludacris
Ludacris
Christopher Brian Bridges , better known by his stage name Ludacris, is an American rapper and actor. Along with his manager, Chaka Zulu, Ludacris is the co-founder of Disturbing tha Peace, an imprint distributed by Def Jam Recordings...
. As she accumulated tens of thousands of MySpace friends, The Observer Music Monthly (OMM), a magazine published in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, took interest. Few people outside of her label's A&R
A&R
Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...
department had heard of Allen, so the label were slow in responding to publications who wanted to report about her.
In March 2006, OMM published an article about Allen's success through MySpace, and she received her first major mainstream coverage appearing in the magazine's cover story two months later. The popularity of her songs convinced her label to allow her more creative control over the album and to use some of the songs that she had written instead of attempting to work with mainstream producers. Allen found herself distracted by the publicity, so to focus on finishing the album, she travelled to the United States to work with producers Greg Kurstin
Greg Kurstin
Gregory Allen "Greg" Kurstin is an award-winning American songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. In 2009 Kurstin received a Grammy Award nomination for Producer of the Year. That same year he won three Ivor Novello awards for his work with Lily Allen, including Songwriters of the Year for "The Fear"...
and Mark Ronson
Mark Ronson
Mark Daniel Ronson is an English DJ, guitarist, music producer, artist and co-founder of Allido Records. He currently works with his band under the music alias of Mark Ronson & The Business Intl....
. There, she was able to complete the second half of the album in approximately two weeks.
The album's title is used in a line from the second track, "Knock 'Em Out": "You look alright still, yeah what's your name?" Allen borrowed the phrase from a slang term that her brother Alfie Owen-Allen
Alfie Owen-Allen
Alfie Evan Allen is an English actor. Allen recently changed his name to incorporate Owen. All of his acting roles are credited as Alfie Allen.-Personal life:...
and his friends used as a synonym for cool. She stated that she liked Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
's aphorism "Nothing changes until something moves" and the idea that "everything is [alright] as long as it's still".
Composition
In her songs, Allen develops various personas. She stated that she tried to "write about stuff that happens to people from all different backgrounds". The lyrics are conversational, with a dark sense of humourBlack comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
. In many of the songs, one of Allen's personae disparages someone around her. In "Smile
Smile (Lily Allen song)
"Smile" is a song by British recording artist Lily Allen from her debut studio album, Alright, Still. It was written by Allen, Iyiola Babalola and Darren Lewis in 2004, while sampling The Soul Brothers' "Free Soul". The song was released as the lead mainstream single of the album in March 2006...
", "Not Big", and "Shame for You
Shame for You
"Shame for You" is a song by British recording artist Lily Allen from her debut studio album, Alright, Still. Written by Allen and Blair MacKichan, while sampling Jackie Mittoo's "Loving You" melody, the song was released as the A-Side to her fourth single, "Alfie", exclusively in the United...
", she insults an ex-boyfriend. In "Knock 'Em Out", she mocks suitors at a bar, and Lily reprimands her brother Alfie on the song of the same name
Alfie (Lily Allen song)
"Alfie" is a song by British recording artist Lily Allen from her debut studio album, Alright, Still. Written by Allen and Greg Kurstin, the song was released as the fourth and final single from the album, on 5 March 2007, by Regal Recordings. In the United Kingdom, it was marketed as a double...
.
Joe Strummer
Joe Strummer
John Graham Mellor , best remembered by his stage name Joe Strummer, was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist of the British punk rock band The Clash. His musical experience included his membership in The 101ers, Latino Rockabilly War, The Mescaleros and The Pogues, in...
, a close friend of Allen's father Keith, played mixtapes of Brazilian music and Jamaican reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
and ska when she was young. Allen stated that she had "always been into very black music" such as ska, reggae, and hip hop music
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
. Since she did not know how to rap
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
, she chose to use reggae as a point of reference when making Alright, Still. The album's music blends ska and reggae with pop melodies. Allen's melodies are influenced by the jazz improvisation
Jazz improvisation
Jazz improvisation is an important aspect of jazz. Basically, improvisation is composing on the spot and coming up with melodies off the top of one's head. Traditionally, jazz improvisation was distinguished from other forms of music improvisation by its chordal complexity, often exhibiting ii V...
techniques of American singers Blossom Dearie
Blossom Dearie
Blossom Dearie was an American jazz singer and pianist, often performing in the bebop genre and remembered for her girlish voice.-Early career:...
and Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
. The album's beats are influenced by various genres such as jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and grime.
Critical reception
Alright, Still received acclaim from the British music press. The album holds a score 79 out of 100 based on 27 critical reviews which indicates "generally favorable reviews", according to the music review aggregator MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
. The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
Drowned in Sound
DrownedinSound.com or DiS is a UK based music webzine financed by artist management company Silentway . The site is an editorially independent music website.-History:...
that the album "is almost a brilliant record, easily a good one and one that promises to divide opinion like Marmite". Uncut
UNCUT (magazine)
Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections...
called it "a terrific, bolshy, eclectic stew of London street pop", listing Alright, Still thirty-eighth on its "Definitive Albums of 2006". In a review for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, Sophie Heawood stated that "the album is rough round the edges, that amateurism serves to bring the listener in", noting that it gave the album a more personal touch. The Guardian ranked it the seventh best album of the year and commented, "For her lyrical nous and her quick delivery alone, get that toast on." The NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
The album generally received positive reviews from international music press. Rob Sheffield
Rob Sheffield
Rob Sheffield is an American music journalist and author. He is currently a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, writing music reviews and essays on pop culture. Prior to that, he was a contributing editor at Blender before the print version of the magazine folded in 2009, and at Spin...
wrote for Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
that Allen's sense of irony was "just more proof that [she's] an original". The magazine ranked the album thirteenth on its list of the best albums of 2007. Heather Phares of Allmusic stated that "enough of Alright, Still works — as pure pop and on the meta level Allen aims for — to make the album a fun, summery fling, and maybe more". Praising Allen for her "genuine personality with wit and attitude to spare", Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
's Mark Pytlik remarked that the album "isn't anything else but a fantastic success". Pitchfork called it "one of 2006's most enduringly rewarding pop albums" and listed it as the twenty-ninth best album of 2006. In his review for Blender
Blender (magazine)
Blender was an American music magazine that billed itself as "the ultimate guide to music and more". It was also known for sometimes steamy pictorials of celebrities....
, Jon Dolan complimented Allen's "little-sisterly" personality, describing it as a combination "of panache and self-doubt, courage and chaos". At the 2008 Grammy Awards, the album was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album but lost to The White Stripes
The White Stripes
The White Stripes was an American rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consisted of the songwriter Jack White and drummer Meg White . Jack and Meg White were previously married to each other, but are now divorced...
' Icky Thump
Icky Thump
Icky Thump is the sixth and final studio album by US alternative rock band The White Stripes. It was released June 15, 2007 in Germany, June 18, 2007 in the rest of Europe, and June 19, 2007 in the rest of the world. It was the band's first album on Warner Bros...
. Ronson's production on "Littlest Things
Littlest Things
"Littlest Things" is a song by British recording artist Lily Allen from her debut studio album, Alright, Still. Written by Allen, Mark Ronson and Santi White, the song was released as the third single of the album on 11 December, 2006 by Regal Recordings...
" helped him win a Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical
Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical
The Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical has been awarded since 1975. The award had several minor name changes:*from 1975 to 1977, the award was known as Best Producer of the Year...
.
On the other hand, Stylus Magazine
Stylus Magazine
Stylus Magazine was an online music and film magazine launched in 2002. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, a number of different podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog....
called the album "nothing more than pop for people who hate pop music" and "phony music for people who can't let go of their inhibitions," while Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
deemed it "rubbish" and called Allen "sickeningly contemptuous."
The mastering of Alright, Still, done by Tim Burrell and Tim Debney, has been criticised. In January 2007, The Guardian ran a piece about loudness war
Loudness war
The loudness war or loudness race is a pejorative term for the apparent competition to digitally master and release recordings with increasing loudness.The phenomenon was first reported with respect to mastering practices for 7" singles...
s, the practice of increasing the loudness of tracks which often results in distortion and the loss of dynamic range
Dynamic range
Dynamic range, abbreviated DR or DNR, is the ratio between the largest and smallest possible values of a changeable quantity, such as in sound and light. It is measured as a ratio, or as a base-10 or base-2 logarithmic value.-Dynamic range and human perception:The human senses of sight and...
. It included Alright, Still in a list of CDs in which sound quality was compromised for loudness. Rolling Stone published a similar story in December 2007, and it also identified Alright, Still as an album "so unrelentingly loud that the sound is actually distorted".
Commercial performance
Alright, Still was commercially successful in the United Kingdom. In late July 2006, it debuted at number two on the UK Albums ChartUK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
. The album dropped off the chart after nearly eleven months but reentered the chart twice, spending a total of sixty-nine weeks on the chart. The British Phonographic Industry
British Phonographic Industry
The British Phonographic Industry is the British record industry's trade association.-Structure:Its membership comprises hundreds of music companies including all four "major" record companies , associate members such as manufacturers and distributors, and hundreds of independent music companies...
certified Alright, Still 3x platinum. On the week ending on 28 January 2007, the top ten places on the UK Albums Chart were filled by British acts for the first time since the chart was established in 1956; Alright, Still was number nine that week. on 14 March 2008 Alright Still was certified 3× platinum by BPI denoting retail shipments of over 900,000 copies, with retail sales close to 1 million in February 2009. In Ireland, the album debuted at number six on the Irish Albums Chart
Irish Albums Chart
The Irish Albums Chart is the Irish music industry standard albums popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on its behalf by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured electronically...
, and it spent a total of thirty-five weeks on the chart. The Irish Recorded Music Association
Irish Recorded Music Association
Irish Recorded Music Association is the Irish record industry association. IRMA is a non-profit association set up to manage and control the music industry in the Republic of Ireland.-Goals and activities:...
certified the album platinum.
The album was less successful on the European mainland. It peaked in the top twenty in Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
; the top thirty in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
and Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
; and the top fifty in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. Alright, Still sold over one million copies throughout Europe.
The album performed similarly worldwide, selling a total of nearly two million copies. Two weeks after its American release, Alright, Still debuted at number twenty on the U.S. Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
, and it remained on the chart for twenty-four weeks. The Recording Industry Association of America
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
awarded the album a gold certification for shipping 500,000 copies. Alright, Still debuted at number seven on the Australian ARIA Albums Chart and spent a total of sixteen weeks on the chart. ARIA awarded the album a platinum certification. In New Zealand, the album debuted at number twenty-six on 31 July 2006 and was certified Gold after nineteen weeks selling over 7,500 copies.
Track listing
Personnel
- Lily Allen – vocals, pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, Letras - Paul Bryan Farr – guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
- Binky Griptite – guitar
- Gabriel Roth – bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, engineering - Tracey Hunte – bass guitar
- John Waddington – bass guitar
- Victor AxelrodVictor AxelrodVictor Axelrod aka Ticklah is a Brooklyn native and independent music producer and artist, who has been a continual and integral part of the NYC music scene for over a decade. As an artist he is a founding member of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, and the Easy Star...
– piano - Iyiola Babalola – keyboardsKeyboard instrumentA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
, percussionPercussion instrumentA percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
, production, engineering, mixingAudio mixing (recorded music)In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may... - Oliver Bayston – keyboards
- John Ellis – keyboards
- Darren Lewis – keyboards, percussion, production, engineering
- Mark Ronson – synthesizerSynthesizerA synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
, percussion, stringsString instrumentA string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
, production, engineering, remixing - Trevor Edwards – tromboneTromboneThe trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
- Michael Lee – saxophoneSaxophoneThe saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
- Neal Sugarman – tenor saxophoneTenor saxophoneThe tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...
- Eddie "Tan Tan" ThorntonEddie ThorntonEdward Thornton , better known as "Tan Tan", is a Jamaican trumpeter whose career began in the 1950s.-Biography:Thornton was born in 1932 and attended the Alpha Boys School. In the 1950s, he played in the Roy Coulton band along with Don Drummond...
– trumpetTrumpetThe trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
- Jonny Wimbolt Lewis – drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
- Paul Powell – drums
- Homer Steinweiss – drums
- Pablo Cook – production
- Greg Kurstin – production, engineering, mixing
- D. Richard Lewis – production, mixing
- Blair Mackichan – production
- Mike Pelanconi – production, engineering, mixing
- George Atkins – engineering
- Robert Smith – engineering
- Andy Marcinkowski – assistant
- Kieran Panesar – assistant
- Danny Porter – assistant
- Tom Elmhirst – mixing
- Vaughan Merrick – mixing
- Tim Burrell – mastering
- Tim Debney – mastering
Aramis Riley - Keyboards, Synthezers
Charts, sales and certifications
| Chart (2006) | Peak position |
Certifications | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Argentinian Albums Chart | 3 | Gold | 50,000+ |
| Australian Albums Chart | 7 | Platinum | 100,000+ |
| Brazil Albums Chart | 5 | 10,000+ | |
| Belgian (Flanders) Albums Chart | 24 | ||
| Belgian (Wallonia) Albums Chart | 79 | ||
| Croatian International Album Chart | 19 | ||
| Canadian Albums Chart | 21 | Gold | 50,000 |
| Dutch Albums Chart | 27 | ||
| French Albums Chart | 47 | Silver | 40,000+ |
| Irish Albums Chart | 6 | Platinum | 20,000+ |
| Italian Albums Chart | 22 | ||
| New Zealand Albums Chart | 22 | Gold | 10,000+ |
| Norwegian Albums Chart | 20 | ||
| Swedish Albums Chart | 42 | ||
| Swiss Albums Chart | 53 | ||
| UK Albums Chart | 2 | 3× Platinum | 1.000,000+ |
| Chart (2007) | Peak position |
Certifications | Sales |
| U.S. Billboard 200 | 20 | Gold | 750,000+ |
| Europe | Platinum | 1,000,000+ |
Release history
| Country | Date | Label | Format | Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Europe Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting... |
14 July 2006 | EMI EMI The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major... |
CD Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,... |
|
| United Kingdom United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages... |
17 July 2006 | Regal Regal Recordings Regal Recordings is a British record label functioning as an imprint of Parlophone.-Background:Regal Records was a British record label founded in 1914 as a subsidiary of the UK branch of Columbia Records known as Columbia Graphophone Company... |
0946 3 67028 2 7 | |
| Mexico Mexico The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of... |
24 July 2006 | EMI | ||
| Australia Australia Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area... |
29 July 2006 | EMI | 3717392 | |
| Thailand Thailand Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the... |
4 August 2006 | EMI | ||
| Brazil Brazil Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people... |
25 August 2006 | EMI | ||
| Canada Canada Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean... |
19 September 2006 | EMI | 0946 3 71739 2 3 | |
| Japan Japan Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south... |
4 October 2006 | Toshiba-EMI Toshiba-EMI (formerly , is one of Japan's leading music companies. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of British music company EMI Group Ltd. in June 30, 2007 after Toshiba sold off its previous 45% stake. The current CEO and president is San-e Ichii. When EMI Music Japan was trading as Toshiba-EMI, it was... |
TOCP-66625 | |
| United States United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district... |
30 January 2007 | Capitol Capitol Records Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine... |
CDP | 0946 3 75466 2 8 |