Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong Gould (yes, that is her real name) is a British singer-songwriter who first rose to fame after Eminem sampled her track “Thank You” on his massive hit “Stan”. (She also appeared in the music video as the titular character’s long-suffering girlfriend). The success of that song proved the springboard for her to conquer the charts, and her debut album “No Angel” reigned supreme as the top-selling UK album of 2001 (and with an estimated 13.5 million copies sold worldwide).
Like many prominent British female artists of the previous few years, Dido dabbles heavily in an electronica and trip-hop based sound, with the odd touch of traditional folk or mainstream pop. All of the tracks on “No Angel” are awash in a sea of calm keyboard effects, uniformly mid-tempo beats and introspective lyrics – and unfortunately, it’s almost as dull as that description might suggest.
The single biggest problem with the album (aside from its samey tempos) is Dido’s voice. She sounds calm and peaceful throughout, but it’s often only a step away from ‘boring’. Without any genuine passion or emotional expression evident in her vocals, the listener is often left grasping at straws for just what she’s trying to evoke. Imagine someone singing after having ingested a dangerous amount of sedatives, and you have Dido’s vocals here. Likewise, the insistence of slow almost-ballads can get grating, as the songs are often too melodically weak, having a tendency to meander before just getting irritating.
That’s not to say the album is a complete write-off, though. It gets off to a nice start with “Here With Me”, which was used as the theme to the TV show “Roswell”. A spacey introduction gives way to Dido’s soft singing, and she slowly gets backed up with a pounding beat, the odd snippet of acoustic guitar and some subtle strings. It creates a nice balance between amiable ambience and driving pop, and the chorus is fairly memorable too. “Hunter” is also solid, with an organic acoustic guitar sound, more strings and a slightly more impassioned vocal delivery. “This queen you think you own/Wants to be a hunter again/Wants to see the world alone again,” she sighs, and it’s all good. There are some nice layers of instrumentation to wade through, and enough compelling moments to warrant repeat listens.
I’m also pretty fond of track three, “Don’t Think of Me”. It’s not any different to the previous songs instrumentally, but the orchestration that appears on the bridge and chorus adds some brooding drama, and it sounds a little more energetic and involved than most of the disc. The lyrics criticise an ex who thought the grass was greener on the other side, snippily informing him that his new girlfriend “Spreads sweet honey/In fact your best friend, I heard he spent last night with her”. The musical ‘breakdown’ at the end is a little annoying, but doesn’t spoil the other strengths of the song.
After that, the listener enters a minefield. “My Lover’s Gone” is restrained, electronic folk with a heavy reliance on atmosphere – it’s pretty enough, but a very safe and bland ‘vanilla’ kind of song. One or two of these is perfectly fine on an album, but the track listing starts being dominated by them. “Honestly OK” is flooded with watery keyboard sounds atop a drugged-up programmed beat, and a few drabbles of cool harmonica sound can’t really elevate it past a label of ‘non-descript’. Ditto for “Slide”, which has an okay chorus (simply consisting of the term “don’t slide” repeated) and a nice final minute, but meanders through too much wishy-washy electronica to be of any real use.
“Thank You”, the song that really started it all, is probably the best piece of the album’s midsection. It’s a cute acoustic guitar number whose first verse was used as the refrain for “Stan”. In its original version, it’s a sunny little ode to love overcoming the tedious obstacles of daily life, and sounds sweet and inoffensive. A few musical embellishments would make it a stronger song, but the arrangement is pleasant and manages to avoid being boring despite its simplicity.
The same cannot be said for the last third of the disc, where the formula starts to be all too apparent. I suppose the dull, quaint sound reminds me a little of Sarah McLachlan, but Sarah’s music is usually a little more luscious than this. I suppose the folky “Isobel” is pretty good divorced from its surroundings, but it’s hard not to start craving some kind of energy or expression from Dido’s voice, and the processed drums and hook-free melodies start to grate. “I’m No Angel” is a perfect example of this, its stuttering acoustic guitar and simple relationship lyrics (“If you gave me just a coin for every time we say goodbye/Well I’d be rich beyond my dreams”) not providing the listener with anything the album hasn’t done before. “My Life” is similar, although its jazz sound is a nice break from the norm, albeit one with nothing else going for it.
My version of the album also has the bonus track “Take My Hand”, which maintains the same trip-hop folk vibe, but has a more energetic and even slightly dance-y baseline. Dido’s anonymous vocals seem more at home in a genre renowned for its coldness and lack of personality, and you can just focus on the stabs of strings and a few funky percussive lines that pop up from time to time. It’s not a great song, but the variation is much appreciated, and coming at the end of a very rigid disc, it’s a nice change despite being a bit overlong.
Overall “No Angel” is a record the word ‘average’ was meant for. Dido isn’t necessarily bad at anything; it’s just that she only rarely enters the land of good. For the purposes of fairness, it is worth noting that this is primarily about atmosphere, so how you feel about it depends on your perceptions of trip-hop and the calm Lillith Fair sound. It doesn’t do much for me, but I can honestly say there’s nothing to hate on this record. It’s just that there’s little to love unless you’re an enthusiast of the genre. Worth a listen, but proceed with caution.
Dido was five when she stole her first recorder. This didn t lead to prison but rather to her entrance one year later into the Guildhall School of Mus...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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