This is Biography Dido born in London on 25 December 1971, Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O’Malley Armstrong, known as Dido Armstrong (although she prefers to be known simply as Dido), is the daughter of a literary agent and a mother who is also active in the world of letters (she seems to be a prolific writer of poems). From an early age, Dido has been involved in music, including serious studies such as those undertaken at the London Guildhall School of Music, without ever forgetting her passion for pop, a genre with which she came to terms from an early age, founding bands and playing in nightclubs.
An important role in this was played by her brother, also a musician, who at a certain point in his artistic experience had the good idea of involving her in the projects linked to his group, ‘Faithless’. From this moment on, the singer, who was the second vocalist in the band, began to embrace electronic music and experiment with various sound solutions, which resulted in the two albums “Reverence” and “Sunday 8pm”, which were well received by the public.
However, despite the fact that it was well received everywhere, Dido was thinking of a solo career, perhaps so that she could develop her idea of music in complete freedom.
The turning point came in 1997, when a manager at Arista, captivated by the singer’s vocal qualities and unusual charisma – not at all aggressive, but deeply charming and insinuating – offered her a contract for a solo album. Fortunately, her brother is not opposed to this, and enthusiastically supports the new project.
“No angel” is the fruit of this long journey, an effort that struggles to be understood by the market and that takes more than a year to establish itself on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Thank you’ became part of the soundtrack of the successful film ‘Sliding doors’ (starring Gwyneth Paltrow); then the TV series ‘Roswell high’ used ‘Here with me’ as its theme song and finally Eminem sampled the first verse of ‘Thank you’, creating around it the now famous ‘Stan’, one of the pearls of his highly successful ‘The Marshall Mathers LP’.
Success had arrived: he began selling a disproportionate number of copies of his first record, which was even reissued in a special edition.
Between appearances on her brother’s productions, reissues of her own tracks and important collaborations (including those with Britney Spears, Beats International and Santana), in 2001 Dido won a major award at the MTV Europe Music Awards as best new artist. At that point, the public (and especially record companies) were waiting for her to make her second attempt, the bogeyman of all those who achieve success.
In fact, there are countless cases of artists who have ‘easily’ achieved success but then proved unable to maintain it.
Dido has tried again with ‘Life for Rent’, a wise mix of pop and electronic music, whose single ‘White flag’ has won the honor of countless airings on MTV and all the international radio stations. The sweet English singer has therefore continued her march towards ever greater and more solid success, mixing various genres (from folk to rock, from hip-hop to dance) in a graceful and unmistakable blend.
His third album, Safe Trip Home, was released five years after the previous one in 2008. It sold one million copies worldwide but was far from the success of ‘Life for Rent’ (13 million copies sold). The cadence with which she produces new music becomes increasingly sparse, so Dido releases “Girl Who Got Away” in 2013 and “Still on My Mind” in 2019, but sales and circulation are increasingly in decline.
Discography
1999 No Angel
2003 Life for Rent
2005 Live at Brixton Academy
2008 Safe Trip Home
2013 Girl Who Got Away
2019 Still on My Mind
