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Dido -
Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong, 25
December 1971, England. Armstrong is the
sister of Faithless mastermind and leading
UK dance music
producer, Rollo. She sang "Flowerstand
Man' on Faithless' 1996 debut, Reverence
and contributed backing vocals to several
other tracks, while maintaining a day job
in a London office and studying for a law
degree part-time. Like her peer, Sonique,
Dido's first solo successes were in the
USA, rather than her native UK. Musically
gifted from an early age, Dido (named
after the Queen of Carthage) attended
London's Guildhall School of Music and
played recorder, piano and violin by the
age of 10.
Her teenage years were spent
listening to her brother's record
collection and touring with a classical
ensemble. She began singing with various
London-based bands before becoming
involved in her brother's project,
Faithless. After the million-selling
success of Reverence, Dido toured with the
band for 18 months and contributed to
Faithless" second album, Sunday 8pm. At
this stage, Dido was writing her own
material and had assembled an album's
worth of demo tapes.These demos led to a publishing deal in
the UK with Cheeky Records and a deal with
the US arm of Arista Records in 1999.
Her debut, No
Angel, was produced by Rollo and Youth and
received its US release in June 1999. The
track "Here With Me" was used as the theme
for the hit US television series Roswell,
and "Thank You" was used on the soundtrack
of the Gwyneth Paltrow movie, Sliding
Doors. Dido's media profile was raised
enormously when rap star Eminem sampled
"Thank You" for his single "Stan", which
became a huge hit on both sides of the
Atlantic. With the emphasis very much on
quality song writing, No Angel combined
electronic and acoustic elements to create
a lush, down-tempo style. It was released
in the UK in October 2000 in conjunction
with live performances on the east coast
of the USA. Phenomenal sales followed as
the album became the preferred listening
at a million middle-class dinner parties. |
