England goes Insane

You've all heard of Lady Gaga, how she flew to the top of the charts by being as outrageous as possible. You've heard about her clothes and how she never wears the same thing twice. You've heard about her high-pitched little voice, her bleach blond hair (more like yellow really), and her nonsensical lyrics.

But in the storeroom of insane female artists England's got her beat. The difference is the British Basket-cases have talent.

     Lily Allen                                        
With her omnivorous musical tastes and cheeky attitude, London-based pop singer/songwriter Lily Allen made a name for herself almost as soon as she released her demos on the Internet. The daughter of comedian Keith Allen, Lily spent most of her childhood bouncing from one school to another -- in fact, she attended 13 different schools between the ages of five and 15. This constant moving meant she didn't have much of a chance to make lasting friendships, so Allen entertained herself with books and, especially, music: she listened to everything from T. Rex, the Specials, and the Slitsto the Happy Mondays and drum'n'bass, and even ran away to see the Glastonbury Festival when she was 14. 

After she left school a year later, she realized that music was the only career for her. Allen concentrated on her songwriting and singing, developing a style that was equally sweet and bratty; late in 2005, she set up a MySpace page and posted demos of her songs, as both individual tracks and as part of two limited-edition "mixtapes" that also featured tracks by Dizzee Rascal, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Ludacris. The critical acclaim for her work fueled Allen's publicity, leading to tens of thousands of friends on MySpace, airplay on BBC Radio One, and a record deal with Regal/Parlophone before the end of 2005.  It's Not Me, It's You, which covered topics like drugs, fame, family, and society, arrived early in 2009, preceded by the single The Fear.

Artist bio by Pandora. 

      Kate Nash                                      
Like simpatico songwriter Lily Allen, Kate Nash launched her career on MySpace, where her piano-driven pop songs and lyrics (delivered in a distinctive London accent) found a number of listeners. One such listener was Lily Allen herself, who rose to fame with a similar style of pop music in 2006. The two began championing each other's music via their respective MySpace sites, and Nash soon found her own success with the platinum-selling Made of Bricks. 

Although born in Dublin on July 6, 1987, Nash moved to North West London as a child and grew up amidst British pop culture. She learned to play the piano at school and took an early interest in acting, but a rejection from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School dashed her hopes of a theater career. 


Following a foot injury that forced her to remain at home while the bones healed, Nash turned her focus to songwriting instead, looking for a diversion from the boredom that came with the recovery process. She booked herself a local gig to showcase the songs she had written while housebound; soon after, Nash uploaded home recordings of those compositions to MySpace. 


Artist bio by Pandora. 

      Florence Welch                             
The bluesy South London crooner Florence Mary Leontine Welch, better known as Florence and the Machine writes songs that occupy the same confessional territory of gossip-loving, genre-bending contemporaries like Amy Winehouse, Kate Nash, Adele, and Lily Allen, blending murder, mayhem, sweetness, and light into an intoxicating brew that earned the young artist considerable buzz in 2007. Managed by the Camden-based DJ duo the Queens of Noize, Florence and the Machine -- usually featuring Welch accompanied by a single guitar player and occasional drummer -- released their debut single, "Kiss with a Fist," on the Moshi Moshi label in June 2008, followed by the critically acclaimed full-length Lungs in summer 2009. 


Artist bio by Pandora. 


Sometimes bluesy and political, sometimes random and poetical, these girls know how to spin lyrics. Both revolutionary and classical, England's got some outstanding representation in the music department.

Minerva