Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle
O'Malley Armstrong (born 25 December 1971 in London
, United
Kingdom) professionally known as Dido ( ) is an
English singer-songwriter who has
sold nearly 30 million albums worldwide.
Biography
Dido was
born as Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong at
St. Mary Abbots hospital in Kensington
, London on Christmas Day
1971. Because she was born on Christmas Day, she also
celebrates an
"official
birthday" on 25 June, following the example of
Paddington Bear.
Her mother, Clare
(née Collins), is a
French
poet and her father, William O'Malley Armstrong,
was an Irish publisher and former
managing director of Sidgwick
& Jackson. She has an older brother, Rowland
Constantine O'Malley Armstrong, who is better known as
record producer Rollo part of the british electronica trio
Faithless. Despite their impressive birth
names, the pair were known from childhood by the names that are
famous now — Dido and Rollo. Dido has made it clear that "Dido" is
now her real name and not simply a
stage
name or
nickname.
Dido was named after the mythical
Queen of Carthage. As a child, she
had to deal with the ambiguous and unusual nature of her name,
which led to her being bullied and even to her pretending to have
an ordinary name. As she explains:
Dido was
educated at Thornhill Primary
School in Dallington, City of London
Girls'
and Westminster School
. After she stole a recorder from school at age five, her parents
enrolled her at the Guildhall School of Music
and Drama in London. By
the time she reached her teens she had learned to play the
piano,
recorder and the
violin.
She later studied law at Birkbeck,
University of London
, while working as a literary agent. She
never completed the degree, deciding instead to take up music
full-time. After learning the guitar, she showcased her skills to
audiences during her 2004
Life for
Rent tour.
Career
Early recordings: (1995–1996)
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.
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.
Life for Rent and Live 8 (2003–2005)
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
started working on her third album in
October 2005 in Los
Angeles
. The album has been produced by
Jon Brion and herself. Collaborators include
Brian Eno,
Questlove,
Mick
Fleetwood,
Rollo Armstrong and
Matt Chamberlain.
Recording sessions
were held at London's
Abbey Road
and at Jon Brion's home
studio in Los
Angeles.
Dido's official website has been relaunched to coincide with the
release of the album. The release of the album has been postponed
several times, though no official reason has been 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 1st
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 available to download from the site for a limited
time. Other songs to be included in 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 be promoted as her previous efforts.
Fourth album (2009–2010)
Dido started recording her fourth album just months after releasing
her third album
Safe Trip Home, which lacked the heavy
promotion of her previous two albums. 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 the
2010, followed by a tour.
Other work
In addition to her solo work, Dido has co-written and provided
vocals for tracks with
Faithless,
including "
One Step Too Far"—which
was released in the UK as a limited edition single, where it
debuted at number six—and "No Roots", the title track of the fourth
Faithless album.
Rollo—Dido's
brother—co-writes and co-produces much of Dido's solo material,
including many tracks on
No Angel and
Life for
Rent.
She provided guest vocals for each of the five studio albums by
Faithless, from 1996's
Reverence to 2006's
To All New Arrivals. Dido worked
with her brother on a CD to accompany the childrens' book he wrote
with Jason White,
Safe from Harm; the CD is also titled
Safe from Harm and the artist is listed as "Dusted". She
co-wrote
Britney Spears's worldwide
number one hit "
I'm Not
a Girl, Not Yet a Woman", soundtrack feature track to Spears's
first major film debut.
In 2006 she re-released the song "Christmas Day", although it
failed to chart in the UK. This had appeared originally on a 2001
EP of "All You Want" (a song from
No Angel).
Dido has provided guest vocals to tracks by other artists including
"Feels like Fire" for
Carlos
Santana's 2002 album,
Shaman, and a duet with
Rufus Wainwright entitled "I Eat Dinner
(When the Hunger's Gone)" for the
Bridget Jones: The Edge
of Reason film soundtrack. Dido also sang vocals for
Eminem in the cut "
Stan". A sample of the Dido track "Do you have a
little time" is used on the song "Don't you trust me" by
Tupac, on the album "
Loyal to the Game", which was almost
entirely produced by Eminem in 2004.
Annie Lennox has joined forces with
Dido and 22 other female artists to raise awareness of the issue of
mother-to-child transmission of HIV to unborn children in Africa.
The single "
Sing" was
released on
World Aids Day on 1
December 2007, in conjunction with Annie Lennox's appearance at the
Nelson Mandela 46664 concert in
South Africa.
Personal life
Upon the release of
No Angel in 1999, after a long time
promoting the album, Dido broke up with her fiancé, entertainment
lawyer Bob Page, after a seven-year relationship. While she has
described her departure from him as her becoming "a free agent in
every sense", the two remain friends. A few songs on her
No
Angel album were written with him in mind ("Thank You" was
written about missing him), and she thanked him publicly upon
winning the Songwriter of the Year award at the
Ivor Novello Awards, adding, "The song
'Thank You' still sums up that relationship. Being single might
make my album more psycho this time".
Awards
Discography
References
- when asked to say her real name.
- Scanned image of the original
document.
- "CERTIFIED to be a true copy of an entry in the register of
Births, Still-births or Deaths in the District above mentioned."
This is an authorized copy of Dido's birth certificate, © Crown
copyright.
- Scanned image
of the original document.
- [1] [[Full
album [safe trip home] world premier]] 2008
- A catch-uip with Dido part 1.
- A catch-up with Dido part 2.
External links
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