C-Sides: Lily Allen

“Littlest Things” (2006)

In 2014, storied and well-respected producer Mark Ronson finally achieved a number one single on the American pop charts with his Bruno Mars-assisted single “Uptown Funk.”However, in contemplating the time he sampled a piano from the soundtrack to a 1974 pornographic film classic and created Lily Allen’s “Littlest Things,” and realizing that the magnificent ballad was never even released in America, we lament a surefire number one American hit opportunity for Ronson that was completely missed. In nailing down exactly how or why this didn’t come to be, we learn something about the flaws that Americans typically want from our favorite UK vocal divas.

Dusty Springfield. Adele. Amy Winehouse. Lily Allen. Sadly, one of these things is not like the others.

There’s a certain melancholic nature meets jolly old England that Americans love. Maybe it’s not so much melancholy as it is a sobering directness in demeanor, an awareness that the glass is half empty. Mix that seeming sadness with a soulful sound that Americans love, and see a history of UK female lead-driven ballads that have become smash American hits. Blend Dusty Springfield’s lovelorn heartbreak with the Stax Rhythm Section, and Dusty In Memphis becomes one of the most iconic albums of the 1960s. Forty years later, Adele blends soul with lovelorn angst, and 21 seemingly still is outselling every other album released in the past five years.

There’s a school of thought that American labels got it all wrong with Lily Allen in releasing sardonic, reggae-tinged hipster pop anthem “Smile” as the only single from Allen’s debut album Alright, Still. It’s entirely possible that Allen would’ve been better served if the American lead single had been taken in a darker direction.

There are points at which Lily Allen’s debut album Alright, Still sounds like what happens when a post-breakup teenage girl from 2006 takes her LiveJournal posts and sets them to rhythm and blues. Ronson tossing a sample of the piano lead from Pierre Bachelet’s porn movie soundtrack cut “Emmanuelle in The Mirror” under a thick rap break is a master stroke of creativity. The sound is akin to what Dusty Springfield did with “Son of A Preacher Man,” but aimed at a millennial teenage demographic. This is the same “Son of A Preacher Man” that was a top 10 Billboard charting American single in 1969 and was later voted one of the 500 greatest singles ever by Rolling Stone magazine. Extrapolate a top 10 in 1969 against competition almost 40 years later and is that a number one? Quite possibly.

Between 2006 and 2007, Mark Ronson’s work with Amy Winehouse was released. Of course, following in well-established tradition, the dark-themed toe-tapper “Rehab” reached number nine on Billboard’s Hot 100. A platinum-selling single, it, and not Lily Allen’s “Littlest Things,” was Ronson’s first American Top 10 hit.

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