Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O’Malley Armstrong was born in December 25, 1971 in Kensington, London, England. She attended Thornhill Primary School in Islington, Dallington School, City of London Girls’ and Westminster School. At age 6, she entered London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama (her parents enrolled her at the Guildhall after she stole a recorder from the previous school). 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.
She also sang with a series of local groups before joining the trip-hop outfit Faithless — the UK dance act spearheaded by her older brother, Rowland Armstrong better known as Rollo in 1995. Dido began recording 10 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. She had a collection that featured a mixture of finished productions and demo versions which she released on her 1999 debut album, No Angel. A&R Peter Edge at Arista Records signed her in the US in late 1996, and negotiated a co-sign deal with her brother’s independent record label, Cheeky Records.
Dido’s biggest break arrived in 2000, when rap superstar Eminem sampled one of her tracks, “Thank You,” for the chorus of his hit single “Stan.” Demand for the Dido’s original quickly escalated. “Thank You” became a Top Five smash in early 2001, No Angel album sales topped 12 million copies worldwide by the time Dido returned to the spotlight two years later.
No 4: Thank You. This song Got nominated for Best British Video while the album No Angel won Best British Album at the Brit Awards 2002, nominated for Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2001, won Song of the Year at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards and Most Performed Work at the Ivor Novello Awards in 2002
Life for Rent 2nd album was released in 2003 preceded by the hit single “White Flag”. Dido embarked on a worldwide tour in support of the album. Her 3rd album, Safe Trip Home, was released in November 2008. The first single from the album, “Don’t Believe in Love”, was released in October 2008, and a track titled “Look No Further” was made available to download from her official website for a limited time. The album failed to sell and Dido opted not to tour in support of the album due to her difficulties with performing the material that was written about the death of her father.
During production of the album, Dido also attended evening classes in music and English at the University of California, Los Angeles. Interestingly, the album was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Shortly after Dido returned to the studio and released the single “Everything to Lose” via digital download in September 2010 following its appearance on the soundtrack of the film Sex and the City 2 (previously released in May 2010). In January 2011, Dido released “If I Rise”, collaboration with producer A.R. Rahman. The song was written for 127 Hours, a thriller film directed by Danny Boyle. “If I Rise” is featured in the climax of the film
NO 3 “If I Rise” – The song won Best Song at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards in 2011. It was also nominated for Best Original Song at the 83rd Academy Awards and 3 other awards and nominated for Satellite Award, Houston Film Critics Society Awards and Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award in 2011
NO 2 Give You Up (the additional single featured on the album)
Dido’s 4th album, Girl Who Got Away, was released by Sony Music Entertainment in March 2013. The album features production from Rollo Armstrong among others. She appeared on the second series The Voice UK in May 2013. In November 2013, Dido released the album Greatest Hits which completed Dido’s contractual obligations with RCA Records, and she spoke of her plans to release her music independently. Dido finally signed to BMG to release her 5th album Still on My Mind in March 2019- collaboration with her brother Rollo
Dido has previously announced her new album’s title along with its cover in November 2018. In 2018, she emerged with the single “Hurricanes,” kicking off the rollout for her fifth full-length.
ALBUMS:
No Angel (1999), Life for Rent (2003), Safe Trip Home (2008), Girl Who Got Away (2013), Still on My Mind (2019)
Every album there’s been quite a long gap and there’s been a bit of living in between and then I end up writing more and it builds up. I’m a very unintentional person, I don’t really have a big plan and I’m not very good at thinking past next week said Dido.
On how Still on My Mind came about: she said, “…I just sort of woke up one morning and was like, “I would love to make a record, but I only really want to make it if it’s with Rollo, my brother…I sort of wanted to go back to how it was at the beginning when music was almost a byproduct of me and my brother hanging out with each other…I wanted to feel that again and that’s what this album is. It’s basically me and my brother hanging out and making music.
No 1: White Flag (off Life for Rent of 2003. The song got nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 2004 Grammy Awards)
AWARDS
Safe Trip Home Nominated for Engineered Album, Non-Classical 2010 Grammy Awards
- Dido considers her name Dido as her real name, and not simply a stage name or nickname
- Dido attained international success with her debut album No Angel. Hit singles from the album include “Here with Me” and “Thank You
