Smiles apart: Lily Allen.
The British music industry will tonight be given four separate opportunities to garland Lily Allen for the slyly astonishing emotional sea change she represents in homegrown pop stardom. You might expect her to waltz home empty-handed from the Brits, in one of her signature prom-dress/boxfresh-trainers/giant-hoop-earring ensembles. She certainly doesn't expect to win anything. Keep your fingers crossed on her behalf, then. If Lily remains an underdog, it will save her the indignity of being co-opted, approved of and paternalised by an increasingly anachronistic industry machine. She's just too good for that stuff.
The raison d'etre of the Brits is to act as a sales platform. But Lily's assault on America, with an initial showing of her album in the top 20 over there (something the Arctic Monkeys, Britain's other of-their-moment pop success story, have yet to achieve), suggests the industry may yet have to eat its own trophy-giving techniques.
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