Lily Allen

UK ska-pop princess Lily Allen rules the Euro-singles school

For those of you living in a cool-free cave out by the FM tower, Lily Allen is hot property. Her first single, the ska-tinged "Smile," has topped Britain's charts and has been oozing out of iPods and shopping malls alike as the song of the summer across Europe.

Allen's album, Alright Still (Regal/Parlophone), is a collection of rocksteady pop that veers between sweet crooning and sassily blunt day-in-the-life raps ? la "Cool for Cats." (In fact, she covered Squeeze, citing "Up the Junction" as a favorite song.) Like Squeeze lyricist Chris Difford, Allen doesn't shy away from the seedier side of London life, taking on would-be suitors in bars, catty girls in clubs, the occasional crack whore, and an obvious favorite, the loser ex-boyfriend. On "Smile" she laments, "When you first left me I was wanting more/ But you were fucking that girl next door/ What ya do that for." more