Smile (Lily Allen song)

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"Smile"
A brunette young woman in a red dress that has "Smile" written all over it. The background contains "Lily Allen" and "Smile" written on top of a building with boomboxes, respectively under a cloud. She is wearing heart-shaped earrings.
Single by Lily Allen
from the album Alright, Still
B-side
  • "Cheryl Tweedy"
  • "Absolutely Nothing"
Released3 July 2006
Genre
Length3:16
LabelRegal
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)Future Cut
Lily Allen singles chronology
"Smile"
(2006) 		"LDN"
(2006)
Music videos
"Smile" on
YouTube

"Smile" is the debut single by British recording artist

the Soul Brothers' "Free Soul". The song was released as the lead mainstream single of the album in July 2006. After signing a contract deal with Regal Recordings and gaining popularity on the social network website Myspace with demo songs, Allen released a limited edition of "LDN
" to promote her work and afterwards announced the release of "Smile".

The song incorporates

UK Singles Chart for two consecutive weeks and ended the year as the country's 11th-most-successful song. It also charted on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100
, where it was certified gold.

For promotion, "Smile" was re-recorded in

Broadcast Music Incorporated Awards.[3]

Background

After meeting George Lamb on a holiday in Ibiza, Allen made him her manager.

A&R department had heard of Allen, so the label was slow in responding to publications who wanted to report about her.[5] Her label was not pleased with the sound of the demos, so they assigned the singer to "more mainstream producers and top-line writers".[5] After that, they finally approved some of her songs, being confident of their inclusion on the album. "Smile" was among the chosen ones, that Allen claimed she was happy with.[5] It was the first song she had ever written, claiming:

When I set out to do this I knew I wanted to make songs that sounded a) up to date and now and b) really organic. Because you can't get really good players without spending loads of money these days, the only other option is to sample. The first song I ever wrote was 'Smile'. We just went through about seven or eight sample lyrics, found a beat, put it all in... Then when it comes to writing lyrics I write... like a rapper would, I suppose, with absolutely no melody involved whatsoever, I'm just getting my flow sorted. Then I write the whole text of the song and then ad lib the melody into the microphone. It's not terribly clever![7]

"Smile" was released as a single in the United Kingdom on 3 July 2006.

Cheryl Tweedy, but argued she doesn't "have anything against her".[7]

Music structure and lyrics

"Smile"
A 30-second sample of "Smile", in which the chorus is played
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Musically, "Smile" is a bubbly, mid-tempo tune with "a barroom piano lick", subdued horns and a reggae beat, singing in a light

beats per minute, and is played in the key of F major.[13] Lyrically, the song describes Allen's satisfaction in her former lover's suffering, being in a vengeful mood: "At worst / I feel bad for a while, / But then I just smile / I go ahead and smile," thus creating a contrast between "the peppy melody and brassy lyrics".[9] The inspiration for the song came from a real life experience, when Allen broke up with her then boyfriend, Lester Lloyd, resulting in a drug overdose and hospitalization for her depression.[14] The singer claimed "I started to get depressed and anyone who suffers from depression knows that it can soon get so bad that you can't get out of bed. It was then that I checked into the Priory. That was really tough as I was an emotional mess. [...] The lyrics are definitely bitter-sweet".[15] Allen said she later regretted the direct approach of her lyrics:

I'm now less inclined to do that, because everything that I do say gets repeated in a way that I haven't said it, or taken out of context and spun in some negative way — and it makes me really sad. I'm not, like, a negative person. I'm actually quite positive, but this industry has really made me feel angry and negative recently. I'm not enjoying it at the moment.[16]

Critical reception

"Smile" was met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics. According to Heather Phares of AllMusic, the song "has a silky verse melody that just barely conceals [the singer's] spite", while she keeps "her revenge sweet, the extra sting being given to it by the way she sounds like she's singing about how ice cream or puppies or being in love makes her smile".[17] Blender reporter Jon Dolan claims that Allen "deploys a sugary melody as a Trojan horse for a smackdown on a douche-bag ex-boyfriend",[18] as Rob Webb from Drowned in Sound called "Smile" an "infectious slice of bouncing, carnival reggae that punches hard with its opening line: 'When you first left me / I was wanting more / But you were fucking that girl next door / What you do that for?,'" and went on to say that the theme of the song is melancholy, "set against breezy beats", and while not being "an obvious TOTP contender on the surface, [it] is good but far from one of the LP's choice cuts".[19] Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone gave a rather negative review, claiming the singer "doesn't sound as if she's trying too hard", singing the song with a "breezy sha-la-la lilt that just made the song seem even nastier". Later, he called Allen a "theoretical pop princess, who just entered the breakup-song hall of fame".[20] Dom Passantino of Stylus Magazine suggested that "'Smile' gets burned off the lights by both Sean Paul and Abs when it comes to facsimiles of 'Uptown Top Ranking,' but neither of them could bring the quality of lyricism the singer does,"[21] while Slant Magazine reporter Sal Cinquemani was baffled as to why the song, which she "sings without a smirk of irony", is a UK chart-topper.[22]

The reviewer from NME considered that the song sashays along with sass, while still remaining charming, and said that though it doesn't mark Allen out as excellent dating material, as a soundtrack to the summer, "it’s a dead fackin’ cert".[12] Adrien Begrand of PopMatters called "Smile" just as good as "LDN", "its loose reggae arrangement augmented by the clever sample of Jackie Mittoo’s piano from the Soul Brothers’ 60s rocksteady tune "Free Soul", as Allen sings bitterly about her ex, with just a hint of vulnerability at first, before going to her friends for reassurance, and confronting the guy during the chorus with a mean-spirited confidence that has us cheering inside".[10] While John Murphy of MusicOMH praised the song and its "gently lilting reggae rhythm",[23] Priya Elan from NME considered that the Althea & Donna groove of "Smile" is what made fans "fall for her in the first place".[24] The former argued that "even people who profess to hate pop music will secretly be tapping a foot to it and claiming it is just downright perfect pop for lolling around during the lazy warm, guaranteed to cheer the listeners up, no matter how down they're feeling".[23] Other reviews came from The Guardian reporter Sophie Heawood, who didn't consider the song as Allen's greatest effort, but still thought she was far better than being called "the female Mike Skinner".[25]

In October 2011, NME placed it at number 104 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years".[26]

Commercial performance

"Smile" was released to the

Swiss Singles Chart.[35] Across the ocean, "Smile" reached 14 on the ARIA Charts and in New Zealand peaked inside the top ten at six.[35]

In North America, the song only managed to peak at 49 on the main

Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on 9 February 2009; it remained Allen's highest-charting single in the country until T-Pain's "5 O'Clock", which featured Allen, peaked at number 10 in 2011.[39] Nonetheless, "Smile" remains Allen's highest-charting song as a solo artist in the United States, one of three entries to chart there (alongside "Fuck You" and "The Fear"). It also peaked at 86 on the Canadian Singles Chart.[40]

Music video

A small, square table with round edges against a tan wall. On the table there are coffee cups and a menu, with chairs on two sides, opposite each other. On the right sits a young, brunette woman with large earrings, fringe hair and a pink dress, who stirs the coffee. On the left sits a young man in a grey jumper, who gesticulates the act of punching with his hands.
Elliott Jordan, as the ex-boyfriend, gesticulating how he was beaten up, and Allen in the official music video for "Smile".

The song's

gramophone records.[41] The ex-boyfriend leaves the table for a while, enough time for Allen to put laxative pills in his coffee; upon returning, he drinks it and leaves the shop. After, he goes to his apartment, only to find it trashed and destroyed. Scavenging through what's left, he happily finds the record box, thinking they are intact, but he suddenly gets diarrhea as a result of the laxatives, but is unable to use his toilet, as it is clogged with his clothes.[41] He goes to Allen's apartment with his records, seeking consolation, unaware that she is laughing behind his back. As the video finishes, the scene changes to Allen walking down the street at night, smiling and singing the last chorus, while her ex-boyfriend, actually a disc jockey, is in a nightclub getting ready to play his music, but finds out that all his records have been scratched.[41]

After the video was banned on MTV in the United Kingdom, Allen commented regarding this in an inverview:

I got really offended when my single 'Smile' got banned [during after-school hours] from MTV in the U.K. because it had the word fuck in it. They said, 'We don't want kids to grow up too quickly.' But then you have Paris Hilton and the Pussycat Dolls taking their clothes off and gyrating up against womanizing, asshole men, and that's acceptable. You're thinking your kids are gonna grow up quicker because they heard the word fuck than from thinking they should be shoving their tits in people's faces?[44]

DJ Ron Slomowicz of

About.com criticised the music video, saying it was "mean-spirited", it would "alienate any sort of club fan base she might discover", and that if a male "had his friends beating up his ex-girlfriend, trashing her living space, drugging her and destroying her possessions, he would be branded as violent" and would be shunned, thus questioning the singer's taste level as well as her suitability as a positive role model for young girls.[45]

Live performances and promotion

A woman singing on a microphone, standing up, with a band with instruments in her back and a crowd of people in front. There are 3D letters in the background, spelling "Lily".
Allen performing during her 2009 concert tour

On the day the single was released, Allen appeared on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge with DJ Jo Whiley, performing an acoustic version of "Smile", and a cover of The Kooks' song, "Naïve".[46] At the Secret Garden Party, in September 2006, Allen made a rendition of the song and afterwards stated: "The festival was well good, particularly as Lester, my ex, who I wrote 'Smile' about, and subsequently sold his story to the papers, had a tent called 'the shit tent' positioned directly opposite the main stage. So he and his new girlfriend had no option but to watch me perform to a couple of thousand people singing 'Smile' back to me. Oh, it's the little things eh!"[47] "Smile" was performed live as part of the setlist of Allen's 2007

2009 concert tour
, as part of the encore.

Covers

Allen herself re-recorded the single in Simlish, the fictional language used in The Sims games, to help promotion.[51] The Simlish version was used in The Sims expansion pack The Sims 2: Seasons soundtrack, and Allen also had her own character in the game.[51] She declared: "Recording 'Smile' was a great experience for me. Sometimes revenge can be fun. But getting to sing it again [in Simlish] came very naturally and it was hilarious to practice! The silly language and whimsy of The Sims games are a perfect fit for the song. I was laughing the entire time!"[51] An animated music video was made for the Simlish version.[51]

In 2009, the season one episode "Mattress" of the Fox musical comedy/drama Glee, "Smile" was covered by the character Rachel, voiced by Lea Michele; the version was made available as an iTunes single download and was later included on the second volume of the season one soundtracks.[52]

Track listings and formats

2009 versions

Credits and personnel

Charts

Certifications and sales

Certifications and sales for "Smile"
Region Certification Certified units/sales
United Kingdom (BPI)[86] 2× Platinum 1,200,000‡
United States (RIAA)[87] Gold 500,000*

* Sales figures based on certification alone.
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

References

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External links

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