Dido - 'Don't Believe In Love'
Whoa! You're never going to believe this, tender listeners, but Dido - the lady with a half-full pillow for a voice and the lung-capacity of a tiny little mousie - has gone ROCK. Srsly! She's been caning the B4MV and the A7X, she's been seen doing the circle pit at Trivium gigs. She's been working out the riff to 'Enter Sandman' with her teeth, and now, in her latest video, can be seen wearing a schoolboy's outfit just like him out of The 'DC, and playing a guitar solo of Dragonforce-level complexity. And all the while winking and leering at some ladies in burlesque outfits and squealing like a tom cat in a vat of rapidly-cooling bikini wax.
Hell, she's even had TATTOOS DONE! OF SATAN! SATAN FLICKING THE VS TO A NUN! ASTONISHING!
OK, so that was all wishful thinking on my part. Dido is back. She sounds exactly like Dido. A tasteful excursion into the area which the compilers of CDs for Mother's Day call Qualiddy Mewsic, in which every sound is soft and harmonious, and her voice is like cooling hands on a fevered brow. Only, y'know, dull.
I don't know why this is a surprise, or something which is hard to take, as she actually IS Dido. Who else is she going to sound like? Michael Buble? Alvin & the Chipmunks? Madonna?
Well thankfully not. And I suppose if we are to accept and enjoy the fact that Oasis are a constantly similar noise in an ever-changing world, and that the fastest way to lose all of your fans is to become something that they do not want, there's really nothing wrong with Dido making another Dido song. And here it is, it's another Dido song, worthy of attention (if you are eating pizza in a restaurant), great to relax to (if you are having major dental surgery) and fit to sit next to all the other great Dido songs of the past.
What great songs, I hear you ask? WHAT GREAT SONGS!?
C'mon, there was the one about the tea, and the one about thanking someone, the one she did with Eminem...they all add up, y'know...
Download: Out now
CD Released: October 13th
(Fraser McAlpine)
PS: Don't despair, Dido fans, Candy Blog has found a use for her after all! . Hurray!
Comment number 1.
At 25th Oct 2008, hackerjack wrote:You sir are a hypocrit of quite large proportions.
You mock Dido for doing what she does best instead of trying to stretch herself, yet you also criticise Johnny Borrell for going beyond his comfort zone with the latest Razorlight release.
Make you're mind up.
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Comment number 2.
At 25th Oct 2008, HazelChartblog wrote:Music can be both rubbish and irrelevant, though; so if a song is redundant in its lack of innovation, that's just as valid a criticism as a song attempting something exciting and that something being, essentially, rubbish.
Basically: critics can have our cake and eat it. So long as we don't start saying things are good because they're boring or awesome because they feature a faintly embarassing close up of Johnny Borrell.
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Comment number 3.
At 25th Oct 2008, Fraser McAlpine - wrote:I wasn't criticising Johnny Borrell for going outside his comfort zone. I was criticising him for going outside MY comfort zone, into the area of sound I like to call 'Extremely Unpleasant Noises'.
I take your point though. AC/DC get praised for not changing their sound, the Beatles get praised because they constantly changed theirs. In the end, it's the results that count, which is the point I was trying to make.
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