Trendy Living 101: How to live trendy

Allee Willis today

Allee Willis has been able to maintain her "Trendy" life over decades. Trendy isn't a fad that comes and goes. Trendy isn't what's in vogue. Trendy isn't just fashionable.

To truly be trendy is a mindset, a commitment to staying current with the times, and a lifestyle.

What does living a trendy life entail?

Allee Willis has done this for decades. To describe her as unique pales compared to her life and accomplishments.

Willis is a GRAMMY®-winning and Emmy- and Tony- nominated composer whose hit songs – including Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” and “Boogie Wonderland,” The Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance,” Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield's "What Have I Done To Deserve This,” and The Rembrandts’ “I’ll Be There For You (Theme From Friends)” – have sold over 50 million records.

In 2006 Willis' songs were in three of the top grossing films of the year: Happy Feet, Night At The Museum and Babel.

Allee Willis writes trendy earworms!

She wrote her first Broadway musical, The Color Purple, produced by Oprah Winfrey and written with Brenda Russell, Stephan Bray and Marsha Norman. The play ran for 2 1/2 years. But Allee says don't try too hard to be "trendy."

I've been lucky enough to be considered 'trendy" but I don't at all attempt to be trendy. Once you do that you're a follower. Trends are set by leaders. I just live the happiest life I can, being as creative as I can in my work and lifestyle and have been lucky enough to be considered "trendy."

Being Trendy is an outlook

Allee Willis and George Benson

Allee Willis embraces trendy and makes it her own.

She does paintings, sculptures, motorized art work and furniture. Willis has tackled new worlds of creative outlets embracing any technology as it is introduced and using her immense skills to leverage it into something trendy.

For example, Allee Willis co-composed, sang, played, produced, drew and animated a series of short videos.

The first, “Allee Willis Presents Bubbles & Cheesecake "It’s A Woman Thang", went viral on YouTube with close to 1,000,000 views, and was selected as Official Honoree in The 2008 Webby Awards and won three 2008 W3 Awards.

The second “Allee Willis Presents Bubbles & Cheesecake "Editing Is Cool", was also ‘featured’ on YouTube and won three 2008 W3 Awards.

The third video, “Allee Willis Presents Bubbles & Cheesecake "I Confess" has had similar success.

Willis latched onto "new media" when it was unknown to others. She developed the first social network portal.

From 1990 until 1997, she and partner Prudence Fenton dove headlong into developing willisville.com. Mark Cuban was the CEO for her framework which used narrative to make a story driven environment.

I just was always clear that I needed to stand up for what I believed, have friends who were healthy influences, live with colorful objects that made me happy when I looked around and pursue a career path that made me happy despite the fact that it was unorthodox to skip between fields as I did.

Allee Willis' home is "The House of Atomic Kitsch"

Trendy is a lifestyle

Allee Willis loves to throw parties. Legendary parties. Her L.A. home is the trendy Streamline Moderne jewel designed by William Kesling.

Willis lives in “the house of atomic kitsch” which she likes to refer to as “Willis Wonderland.”

Willis is a huge fan of kitsch and has one of the world's largest collections.

So large that Willis was actually in the dictionary.com definition of kitsch. Her expansive vision further extends to art direction, set design, and animation.

Michael Jackson as a California Raisin

A feature on Willis, People Magazine once called this artistic overdrive
“a multi-threat creativity that itself seems like a Godzilla out to conquer Lalaland.”

Allee Willis celebrating Tony Basils' #1 hit "Mickey"

Trendy is a commitment

Allee Willis newest music video, "Hey Jerrie", is an homage to her friend Jerrie.

Jerrie Thill, a 91 year old female drummer/singer on an oxygen tank, was feeling down. Allee, challenged by her friend's predicament, responded as usual: she wrote, produced, and directed a music video for YouTube.

It became the 79th most viewed video in the world on its first day of release.

Willis also scored a Myspace hit with “Does She Love Me?” by Stallionaires, theme to VH-1’s "Real Chance Of Love" , with over 1.5 million plays without a record company, video or promotion.

Allee Willis has consulted for Intel, Microsoft, AOL and Disney, and created virtual worlds for a variety of other entertainment and technology companies. Willis is an activist and represented 3,000,000 BMI songwriters, as she addressed the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property regarding artist rights in cyberspace.

She lectured on interactive journalism at Harvard University. Willis’ heralded cyber-artistry also devised the acclaimed lilytomlin.com in collaboration with Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner. Based on Tomlin’s life, characters and Tony-winning play The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe, Kate is based on Willis.

Trendy living means looking ahead

Be yourself. Live a very self expressive life. Everything is a canvas for self expression - your home, your hair, your car, your front lawn, etc. Don't stay at a job you don't like. Reinvent yourself whenever you hit a roadblock. Trends are set by bold, individual thinkers. Don't let other people hold you back.

Allee Willis will be taking on projects that use as many different creative sources as she can muster. She says she has

accelerated way beyond overdrive and achieved lift-off.

Bubbles & Cheesecake, is a six song collaboration with longtime collaborator singer-songwriter Holly Palmer aka Cheesecake, former vocalist with the Gnarls Barkley live band.

Bubbles & Cheesecake is the first multi-media collaboration of a huge variety of artists. The series is built around the hyperactive website, alleewillis.com. Via this site, as well as other recent projects Willis developed, she asked the question