Dido - No Angel

Not outstanding

I was honestly expecting more, after reading the reviews and acclaim. But this album is simply average. It takes from a wide range of sources in which the music is just simply done better! Her voice is average at best, with no substance that would make it attractive were it not for the production of the sound. The lyrics are cheesy and corny and plain dumb. I'm not sold! August 25, 2008

Shadows overcrowd this album, but Dido pulls through

After hearing and immediately falling in love with Dido's second album, "Life for Rent", I decided to give her debut album a shot. (Over 1,000 reviews giving it high ratings didn't hurt either.)
The cd opens out with the smashing "Here with Me" that shows the power and strength that I love in Dido's "White Flag". The lyrics are simple, but it's so stirring, you won't be unmoved.
Dido then slides into dark and troubled waters with "Honestly OK", "My Lover's Gone", and "My Life", which are mainly just a few lines and lots of electronic instrumentals: not neccesarily a bad thing, but the songs turned out a little shallow and unfulfilling. Dido redeems herself with the title track ( not a dirty, flirty song as you might be expecting, but simply expounding on the "strive for excellece, not perfection" idea); and the smash hit, "Thank You". "All You Want" and "Isabel" aren't bad, but they seem to be lacking something - I wasn't hooked.
The whole album carries a dark and depressing undertone of heartache and loss, which gently pulls you in under into it's sweeping undertow and you feel it softly bearing you away to somewhere solitary and shadow-covered. But dear Dido, give us a chance to breath!
So the bottom line is, there are a few good songs on here and I don't regret buying it(After all, I got it for $1 used), but I enjoyed "Life For Rent" more. Her voice, songwriting skills, and mixing is more developed and mature than in "No Angel". I'd advise you to get both. April 25, 2008

Dido soars with 'No Angel.'

Let me join in the chorus of five-star reviews to praise this perfect pop album. Dido (whose full name is Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong) first caught my attention when I heard her song "Thank You" on the Sliding Doors soundtrack (which Eminem sampled in his UK number-one single "Stan"). However, her breakthrough occurred a year later with the release of No Angel, which has since sold twelve million copies worldwide. My interest in Dido soared. The album features two singles, "Thank You" (perhaps the greatest break-up of all time) and "Here With Me," amidst a setlist of equally infectious, melancholic at times, trip-hop songs. Dido's third, long-awaited album is currently in production and is due later this year (September 23, 2008). The complete No Angel setlist of sure-to-get-stuck-in-your-head-songs includes:

1. Here With Me 4:15
2. Hunter 3:57
3. Don't Think Of Me 4:32
4. My Lover's Gone 4:27
5. All You Want 3:53
6. Thank You 3:37
7. Honestly Ok 4:37
8. Slide 4:52
9. Isobel 3:54
10. I'm No Angel 3:55
11. My Life 2:59
12. Take My Hand 6:42

G. Merritt March 25, 2008

A Celtic queen sings of love lost

Intimacy, poignancy, memories, melancholy, and loss are represented in this 1999 CD, the first by Dido, now a British music icon. This work represents the epitome of success (to me) because every song is a winner. No pushing the skip button on any of these.

Dido has been compared with other singers--Sinead O'Connor, Sarah MacLachlan, and Beth Orton, but there are no comparisons--Dido is an original, a force all her own.

Her birth name is Florian Cloud de Bounevaille O'Malley Armstrong, daughter of a French poet and Irish politician, but she informally calls herself Dido. The mythic/historical Dido/Elissa was queen of Carthage at the time Rome was founded and later succorred and bedded Aeneas after the Trojan War, after which he left her to return to Rome.

1. "Here with me"--I didn't hear you leave/I don't want to move a thing, it might change my memory....I cannot be, until you're resting here with me.
2. "Hunter"--One of two favorites--She wants to be a "hunter" again, to take a chance on life again; love has died.
3. "Don't think of me"--You chose her over me, now she's with your best friend--It's too late to think of me
4. "My lover's gone" Her lover is dead and will never return.
5. "All you want"--She sings the Celtic "yelp" or yodel as it is called in the South
6. "Thank You"--My other favorite--"I want to thank you for giving me the best day of my life, oh just to be with you is having the best day of my life"--Happiness in the messiness of life.
7. "Honestly OK"--Instruments are great: percussion, synthesizer with bubbly sounds like a person drowning in sadness: "I just want to feel safe in my own skin, I just want to be happy again"

11. "My life"--a Nora Jones kind of song--She sings of disappointment in her lover and says she is responsible for her own happiness.
12."Take my hand"--touch my skin and tell me what you're thinking. Lie down next to me, tell me how you're feeling. Has a full orchestral sound.

Dido's voice is an instrument as much as the instruments. Her instrument soothes, causes the face to let fall tears, smile, definitely sing along and relish in both sadness and happiness. Dido in Latin means "wanderer" and wandering we will go down this road of rich musicality and emotions.


March 24, 2008

Eh....

I saw Dido in concert, and the spark and variety she showed in concert is not reflected in this CD. This Cd has not stood up to the test of time. After a few listens, although her voice is pleasant and music is relaxing, it becomes monotonous.
August 16, 2007

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