'I've never really looked up to people in music," says Lily Allen, London's rising pop star. In fact, "rising" may be too subtle a word -- "soaring" would be more accurate. Right now in Britain she adorns several magazine covers, blasts from radio stations across all demographics, and even played just after midnight on Jools Holland's prestigious "Hootenanny" television show on New Year's Eve, ushering in a year that for her will likely be a prosperous one.

A bundle of contradictions, the 21-year-old is at once disarmingly truthful and painfully funny. And better still, her music is the stuff that pop dreams are made of: Simple but deep, honest but infectious, instantly lovable and hard to forget. She's the icon that Britain didn't even know it needed. And it is ironic that someone with no idols has become an idol herself -- or then again, that might explain things entirely.

"I've never really had posters of people on my wall," she continues during a recent interview with The Japan Times. "I think that role models should be close to home, rather than people you don't know at all. That's why I'm so honest about everything that goes on in my life, 'cos I understand that there are young kids who look up to singers and people in the media as role models. But you don't really know anything about their lives. They don't talk about their weird sex habits and drug habits (laughs). Yet you idolize them. And when it eventually gets printed all over the papers, people become very disappointed."