| Birth name | Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong |
| Born | 25 December 1971 |
| Origin | London, England, UK |
| Genres | Pop, Trip hop, alternative rock |
| Occupations | Musician |
| Instruments | Vocals, piano, guitar, drums, recorder |
| Years active | 1995–present |
| Labels | Cheeky, Arista, Sony Music |
| Website | www.didomusic.com |
Following the sampling of her single "Thank You" on Eminem's 2000 hit, "Stan", Dido shot to worldwide success with her debut album, No Angel (1999). The album sold in excess of 21 million copies worldwide, and won several awards; including the MTV Europe Music Award for Best New Act, two NRJ Awards for Best New Act and Best Album, and two BRIT Awards for Best British Female and Best Album. Her following album, Life for Rent (2003), continued her mainstream success with the help of popular singles "White Flag" and "Life for Rent". The album went on to sell around 12 million copies worldwide and saw her receive more accolades; including the Ivor Novello Award for Songwriter of the Year for "White Flag", two further BRIT and NRJ Awards, as well as a Grammy Award nomination. Her third and latest studio album, Safe Trip Home (2008), received critical praise to help maintain her success. Dido has been ranked #98 of Billboard 200 Artists Music Chart based on the success of her music in the first decade of the 21st century. She has sold over 6 million in United States, earning herself best-selling British artist in the United States title, and 32 million albums worldwide, establishing herself as one of the best-selling artists of her time.
In 1995, Dido began recording demo tracks which were put together on a collection entitled Odds & Ends and sent out by Nettwerk management. Nettwerk had signed her after she was brought to their attention by her collaborations with Faithless (Dido co-wrote and provided vocals for album tracks, such as "Flowerstand Man" and "Hem of His Garment") and the UK dance act spearheaded by her brother, Rollo Armstrong. The collection was released by Nettwerk on CD-R acetate in 1995 and featured a mixture of finished productions and demo versions which she later considered for release on her debut album, released in 1999 as No Angel. Odds & Ends brought her to the attention of Arista Records, who signed her in the USA, striking a deal with her brother's record label, Cheeky Records, to co-sign her. Of the tracks included on Odds & Ends, "Take My Hand" was included on all editions of No Angel as a bonus track; "Sweet Eyed Baby" was remixed and renamed to "Don't Think of Me", while "Worthless" and "Me" were released exclusively on the Japanese edition.
Breakthrough (1998–2000)
Cheeky Records, to which Dido was signed, was sold to BMG records in 1999. This delayed the release of No Angel in the United Kingdom, but also allowed her to concentrate on promoting the album No Angel in the United States, including a slot on Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair tour. Through touring, both before and after the album was available, Dido's music began to receive more exposure. The first official single chosen by Dido and her label, "Here with Me", was used as the theme music for the television programme Roswell. Arguably it was this, as well as the airplay on MTV throughout Europe of the single's video, which brought her mass attention.
In 1998, the music producer for the film Sliding Doors picked her track "Thank You" for the soundtrack. No Angel was first released in 1999, and Dido toured extensively to promote the record.
Eminem helped introduce Dido to the US audience in 2000 when he sampled the first verse of "Thank You" in his UK number-one single "Stan", after seeking permission from Dido herself; she also appeared in the music video as Stan's long-suffering girlfriend. She reportedly did not want to do the video at first, as she was uncomfortable with the scene in the video where she had to be tied up and have her mouth covered with duct tape, but later agreed to it and got along well with Eminem and the crew on set. Interest soared in her debut album, leading it to hit charts in Europe on import sales alone, charting in the top five on the UK albums chart before its official UK re-release. "Thank You" was also sampled by the Airheadz in their trance track "Stanley Here I am" originally as a bootleg, but later entering the UK Top 40 in in April 2001.
No Angel (1999–2002)
Her No Angel went on to become the top-selling album of 2001 - both in the United Kingdom and worldwide, debuting at, and returning to, number one in the official UK albums chart many times throughout the year. It spawned two Top Ten hit singles, "Here with Me" and "Thank You", a further Top Twenty hit, "Hunter" and a fourth and final single release "All You Want" which reached the top 25. It was certified platinum in over thirty-five countries, and is estimated to have sold over 21 million copies worldwide. It is the second biggest selling album of the 21st century in the UK. Dido's widely emulated hairstyle at this time became known as the "Dido flip". Her sold-out worldwide tour featured hip-hop artist Pete Miser as her live band's DJ. After the tour, in 2002, Dido took a sabbatical, and began to write and record her second album. No Angel claimed #97 according the Decade-end album chart by Billboard.
Life for Rent was released on 29 September 2003 (world), 30 September 2003 (USA & Canada) and became one of the fastest selling albums in UK music history, debuting at number one in the UK, Ireland, France, Denmark, Switzerland, South Africa, Australia, Greece, Mexico, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand, the USA, Italy, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria and many more. Preceded by the hit single "White Flag", the music video for which features Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Bones star David Boreanaz, the album sold over 152,000 copies in the first day alone in the UK, and went on to sell over 400,000 in the first week. Three further singles—"Life for Rent", "Don't Leave Home" and "Sand in My Shoes"—were lifted from the album, with Dido embarking on a worldwide tour in support of the album (a DVD of footage from the tour was released in 2005 entitled Live at Brixton Academy). It is the 4th biggest selling album of the 21st century in the UK.
Following her sold-out world tour of 2004, Dido was asked to perform at three of the Live 8 concerts on 2 July 2005—performing in London, then at the Eden Project in Cornwall, before flying over to Paris, performing both solo ("White Flag") and duetting with Youssou N'Dour ("Thank You" and "Seven Seconds").
Also in 2005, Dido provided vocals for her brother's side project Dusted on the album Safe from Harm. She sings on the tracks: "Time Takes Time", "Hurt U" and "Winter" and she co-wrote three tracks on the album: "Always Remember to Respect & Honour Your Mother, Part 1", "The Biggest Fool in the World" and "Winter".
Safe Trip Home (2008)
Dido's official website was relaunched to coincide with the release of the album. The release of the album was postponed several times, though no official reason was ever given for this. The first single from the album, "Don't Believe in Love" leaked to the Internet on 5 September 2008 and was made available digitally on 27 October 2008. The full album was leaked to the internet on the 1 November 2008, some 16 days before its official launch date. On 13 November 2008, the full album was available for a world premier listening at iLike.
On 22 August 2008, Dido's official website confirmed that the album was to be entitled Safe Trip Home, with the official release date of 17 November 2008. A free song from the album, "Look No Further" was made available to download from the site for a limited time. Other songs included on the album are: "It Comes And It Goes", "The Day Before the Day", "Never Want To Say It's Love" and "Grafton Street". The latter was composed in collaboration with Brian Eno. The album cover features a photograph of astronaut Bruce McCandless II during a spacewalk, as part of space shuttle mission STS-41-B.
In December 2008, Dido's song "Let’s Do The Things We Normally Do", was criticised by Gregory Campbell, MP for East Londonderry and Minister for Sports, Arts and Leisure for Northern Ireland, for referencing lyrics from a song, "The Men Behind the Wire” which was written in the aftermath of the introduction of detention without trial for persons accused of being members of paramilitary groups. Campbell described "The Men Behind the Wire" as "written about people who were murderers, arsonists and terrorists". Campbell suggested "she [Dido] should clarify her position so that her fans and the wider public knows where she stands on these things". The album failed to sell as well as her previous efforts. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.
Dido started recording her fourth album just months after releasing Safe Trip Home. Dido stated in July 2009 that her fourth album, still untitled, will have an electronic approach, which is totally different to the organic direction she took with the previous album. The new record will be released sometime in 2010, followed by a tour. Dido's official site told of a new song, the single "Everything to Lose" is currently part of the Sex and the City 2 Official Movie Soundtrack and is yet to be released as an actual single.
Biography
Dido - Safe Trip Home
Safe Trip Home is the warm, moving and wonderfully musical third album from Dido, the London-born singer-songwriter with the cracked-crystal voice. The first, you might remember, was No Angel, a record made when Dido was a part-time backing singer with a tiny budget and no label. When that record's heartfelt snap-shots of life were released in 1999, nobody, least of all Dido, expected the album to eventually become the planet's biggest seller of 2001. The similarly affecting follow-up, 2003's Life For Rent, also burrowed its way into millions of hearts, hitting number one in 26 countries and lighting up the airwaves in many more. By the time Dido had toured that record around the world, she was ready for a bit of a breather.
"It was a whirlwind," she says. "When I got back from touring early in 2005, it took a while just to take in what had happened. I was so unprepared for it. As far as I was concerned I was making this little underground record for me to listen to and then, suddenly, eight years later I was getting off this incredible speeding train. I'd had an amazing time, but I guess I needed to take a step back, reconnect with normal life and bring the focus 100 percent back to music."
Although she disappeared from view, Dido took very little time off from music. However, rather than immediately starting to write new songs, she threw herself into playing, whether it be her music or others people's. "I wanted to take some time to become a better musician," she explains. "For the first two albums, any playing I'd done had been used purely for songwriting, which is very different from just playing for fun, like I had as a child. So I spent a lot of time just picking up instruments for playing's sake again. I loved it."
Dido had inadvertently set the tone for Safe Trip Home, a record whose smouldering, soulful songs were to eventually feature her playing guitar, piano, bells and the trusty old recorder she'd toured Europe with as a prodigious pupil of London's Guildhall School of Music. She's even responsible for some of the album's drums (most notably on the sumptuously melancholy Quiet Times).
When Dido met up with producer, Jon Brion (Fiona Apple, Kayne West, Rufus Wainwright, Eels) at London's Abbey Road studios towards the end of 2005, he was blown away by her musicianship. "I realised she had this beautiful feel for playing from the first day I met her," he says. "In fact, if there's anything I'm particularly proud of with this record, it's encouraging Dido to play more instruments. When she plays drums, her groove is magnificent. And her touch on piano is absolutely stunning."
"Jon persuaded me to go out to LA and do some writing," says Dido. "We had this brilliant few weeks working together. It felt like I could try anything I wanted, with whatever instrument I wanted. That was really the start of the album." Songs like the sensuous Never Want To Say It's Love and the string-soaked Let's Do The Things We Normally Do were two of several tracks to emerge from those productive sessions.
Buoyed by that initial progress, Dido decided to relocate to LA for a while to continue working with Brion on the album. It was a city ripe with opportunities, whether that be the potential for long drives into the desert listening to music, the amazing vocal sound in Brion's broom cupboard, the chance to get Citizen Cope in to sing on the gorgeous Burnin Love, or the fact that Dido's favourite drummer Mick Fleetwood was on hand to play on Grafton Street, the plaintive album highlight she'd written with another inspiration, Brian Eno.
"I wasn't actually a big fan of LA before," she admits, "but it turned out to be an amazing place to follow through an idea and keep going without anyone saying you're being completely ridiculous. It's a city built on imagination, story-telling and creativity. Plus, everyone seems to go to bed at 9pm, so I'd get a lot done at night."
Dido's musical experimentation also extended to learning more about the actual mechanics of recording. "I was very impressed by that," says Brion. "It would be a very easy life for her to allow people to make stuff for her to sing on and I think it's more than a little bit admirable that she is so inquisitive about everything. She learned a ton about engineering, about arranging, about mastering, about the construction of music. She even went and took some music courses at UCLA. This is not the thing the average person who's just looking to crank it out does."
Indeed, rather than rushing to get the album done, Dido was happy to take her time. "I didn't really feel any urgency to stop writing," she says. "In fact, when I'd finished all the stuff with Jon in LA, I came back to England and realised I really wanted to start using all the things I'd learned there. So I sat down at my kitchen table with my laptop and a microphone and just started writing and recording, using a new computer programme I'd got. I ended up with a whole load more songs."
One afternoon, Dido's brother Rollo, who co-wrote and co-produced her first two albums, came round for tea, so she played him a bunch of the new songs. "He got really excited about them, so we decided to go into the studio with them. But a lot of the recordings on the album actually came from that time in my kitchen. If you listen closely, you can hear my neighbours drilling or the rain pelting down outside."
"I really think this album has benefitted from its gestation period," says Rollo. "I think Dido has gone on a musical journey with it. She'd ring me from LA and say, "I'm recording vocals in an echo chamber!" or "we're busy reversing 200 strings we just recorded!". She was obviously having so much fun. But, for all that, the songs on this album still channel Dido's amazing ability to move people with melodies and lyrics. There's never any pretension on a Dido record. I think the words supposed to say what they mean but in a way that's not cliched."
"Frankly, I don't believe what most people are singing about when I hear their records," says Brion. "I hear, 'I want attention, I want to be famous, I want you to think I'm smart'. But with Dido, I know she isn't kidding. I hear her in her lyrics. Take away any preconceptions and you'll hear that her words are a hotbed of truth. It's no surprise to me that so many people all over the world have connected with her."
Dido's softly-expressed thoughts, parables, feelings, hopes and concerns flow unfettered from Safe Trip Home. It is a record of love and loss, strength and surrender, highs and lows. And, as with her previous two albums, Dido shows an astonishing knack for extracting life's universals from its little details. "Dido bares her heart in her music in a way that she doesn't in any other public domain," says Rollo. "I think the key with her records is the idea that it all goes from Dido to the listener in the most straightforward, emotionally honest way. It's like an emotional A to B with as little interference from me as a producer."
"I still manage to get into this headspace when I'm writing where I completely forget that anyone's going to hear the songs," admits Dido. I don't really draw any limits for what I put in the songs, emotionally. Some of these songs are about general themes and some are about other people's lives, but some are specific and personal to me. Maybe I leave myself exposed, but I find it hard to do anything that isn't emotional or doesn't move me in some way. by not explaining my lyrics to people , it actually gives me the freedom to express myself without limits in the songs."
That, as much as anything, is what makes Safe Trip Home such a rewarding listen. "This album is full of the joy of making music," says Dido. "The process of making it has been a wonderful experience, something to totally cherish. I've put every emotion into these songs. And now I just really hope they move people."
It's hard to imagine that they won't.
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