The lovely Dido is the newest darling of the hit charts. She comes across as an enchanting cross between Ella Fitzgerald and Enya or Sarah McLachlan with a jazz streak. Her debut album No Angel is number nine in Billboard Magazine’s 200 albums where she is the only British artist in the top 10 and the only female singer save for Jennifer Lopez. Other places in the world are also beginning to take notice of Dido’s music, including the Philippines where soft, dreamy singing like hers seldom fails to find a big following.
Dido was five years old when she began her music training with the recorder. A year later she was enrolled at the Guildhall School of Music and also studying piano and violin. She picked up singing when she was 17 after deciding that although she can never be a concert pianist, there was still no reason for her to completely give up music. So along with an office job during the day and law school at night, she was also recording with her brother Rollo’s group Faithless.
Dido was with Faithless in two successful albums, Reverence and Sunday 8 pm and she also joined the group on its first tour. This sint completed her transition from classical to pop and gave her ample knowledge on the intricacies of pop music production and marketing. Maintaining such a schedule proved too hectic though that she soon gave up everything. No day job, law school and no more Faithless. Dido had decided to go solo, writing her own songs and recording her first album.
The lovely No Angel is the result of her efforts. The breaks came easily after the album hit the market. One cut, Thank You was chosen to be the closing song in the Gwyneth Paltrow movie Sliding Doors. Another one, Here with Me became the theme of the TV show Roswell High. As if those were not enough, hot hip hop artist Eminem sampled Thank You in Stan, one of the cuts in his smash seller The Marshall Mathers LP. The recording so pleased Dido that she agreed to appear in Eminem’s video, playing the part of the pregnant girlfriend who drowns in the trunk of a car.
Dido’s music is a far cry from what Eminem does but his imprimatur on her music with Stan and her appearance in the video gave her wide exposure and woke up the younger batch of listeners to what she has to offer. If Eminem likes her, she has got to be hip. So they listened to her Thank You and liked what they heard. Soon, No Angel, although lacking the sort of funfare that a Celine Dion or Jennifer Lopez album gets, was quietly but determinedly zooming up the charts.
No Angel is made up of 12 originals, mostly composed by Dido alone, with Rollo or other collaborators. She is also credited as producer in most of the songs. Aside from Thank You and Here with Me, the album also includes Hunter, Don’t Think of Me, My Lover’s Gone, All You Want, Honestly OK, Slide, Isobel, My Life, Take My Hand and I’m No Angel.
In the top 200 albums list, the top 10 sellers are as follows: J. Lo by Jennifer Lopez; Hotshot by Shaggy; Save the Last Dance, the original movie soundtrack by Various Artists; 1 by the Beatles; O-Town by O-Town; It Was All a Dream by Dream; Now 5 by Various Artists; Human Clay by Creed; No Angel by Dido; and Rule 3:36 by Ja Rule.