Dido - Life for Rent
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Music CD Cover
Artist: DidoEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2003-09-30
Music Label: Arista
Product features:
- Features "White Flag", a worldwide hit
- Dido's 2nd album
- Run time 54:02
- White Flag
- Stoned
- Life For Rent
- Mary?s in India
- See You When You?re 40
- Don?t Leave Home
- Who Makes You Feel
- Sand In My Shoes
- Do You Have a Little Time
- This Land is Mine
- See the Sun
Free Music Notes for Life for Rent
Free Music Review: Second Album; Second Masterpiece
Hit: 5 Stars
Since Dido first stormed into the charts with her debut album "No Angel" back in 2000, she has gone on to prove herself a true artist with staying power. When you can sell 12 million copies of your album after being sampled on a rapper's song, you must be good. No Angel was full of emotion and passion that poured from the pure voice of Dido Armstrong and touched everyone who listened to it in a way like no other artist before her. A follow-up to this incredibly debut was going to be difficult. It has finally arrived, three years later, so what's the verdict?
"Life For Rent" is its name, and it's one you won't forget anytime soon. Most artists have trouble following up a critically acclaimed debut album, but Dido pulls it off easily. The critics have been less generous in their praise for this new album, but the fans make up for this. Life For Rent sold more than 100,000 copies in the UK alone on its first day of release. By the end of the week it had shifted 350,000 copies and became the fastest selling album for six years (when Oasis' took their "Be Here Now" album to No.1, selling more than 700,000 copies in one week - incredible if you remember that England is one fifth the size of America in population terms). It's no secret that Life For Rent follows a similar style to No Angel in terms of style and production, but this is no bad thing. Why mess with a successful formula?
Life For Rent opens with the lead single, "White Flag." Perhaps the most popular UK radio hit of 2003, this wonderful ballad is typical Dido. Soaring vocals, flowing strings and sing-a-long lyrics are the highlights on this song about loving someone, but not telling them because it could confuse things. "Stoned" is probably my favourite song on the entire album. Dido dabbles with electronica on this almost-six-minute masterpiece, which opens with a long drum and bass introduction to get you into the mood for the song. You could listen to it while driving along an open road. It's fresh, it's free and it's deeply atmospheric. The album's title track, "Life For Rent," follows and is no doubt single material. It's another typical Dido ballad with all the right ingredients that made her the world's biggest selling British singer. The mellow verses fuse together like steam. You can feel the atmosphere seeping out of your speakers and transporting you into Dido's world.
"Mary's In India" is a fantastic song with a clever concept about Danny, a man who has been left by his lover Mary who has fled to India. Towards the end of the song, we realise Dido has replaced Mary. The song is so slow and transfixed on relaxing the listener. "See You When You're 40" is definitely an album highlight. The song just starts from no where, and a heavy beat hugs the song. It sounds like wind howling across the top of a Yorkshire moor on a frosty night. A cold and desolate place that is soon warmed by violins, and of course, Dido's voice. "Don't Leave Home" is truly the centrepiece of the album. This is another typical Dido ballad about new-found love, but with a twist. It comes not in the concept or style, but in Dido's voice. The verses are soft and mellow, but the choruses are a flurry and whirlwind of excitement and grand vocals that reach stratospheric heights. "Who Makes You Feel" is another good song with some chilling lyrics and some weird instruments. It's not the best song on the album by far, but it's still something different which is always a good thing.
"Sand In My Shoes" is an album highlight. The topic of this song is so new and original, and involves Dido singing about how she's back home from two weeks in the sun. She's glad to be back home, but she still misses the man she fell in love with over there. She sings about not being able to see him and how it's affecting her. The song opens with car sirens and a wonderful guitar, followed by some fast-sung vocals in the verse. The chorus are wonderfully summery, and the most amazing thing happens as the third minute approaches. This really cool and catchy rhythm kicks in, bursting from the speakers. It fills your soul and you can't help but jump around. Awesome song, definite single! "Do You Have A Little Time" is probably the worst song on the album, but it's still great. It's a rather strange song from Dido and breaks away from the traditional formula.
"This Land Is Mine" is another fantastic song with hidden meanings and uses metaphors to explain things. Dido sings of herself as some owner of a plot of land - a county or a state. She sings about a man and she is allowing him to rule and navigate this land. It's obvious from her tone and her usual songs that her plot of land is herself and her body. She's letting this man navigate and demand, just as long as he knows the land belongs to her. The guitar is amazing, and the lyrics always make you think. The album closes with the wonderful and epic song "See The Sun." Dido sings about her friend, and how she promises that he'll see the sun again after he's broken up with his girlfriend. The lyrics are just so brilliant and typical, and the instruments feel like sun slowly breaking through the clouds. The day becomes brighter and more positive, leading to a wonderful climax that closes the album.
OVERALL GRADE: 10/10
The album actually closes with a hidden track which plays a few minutes after the last track on the listing. It's a rather cool acoustic song, but you can see why it was hidden. It's not that good! All in all Life For Rent is a fabulous album that is by far my favourite album of 2003 so far. It might not be by the end of the year, but this is definitely one of my favourite albums for years. I definitely regard this album to be better than No Angel. I can listen to it more freely, and feel more relaxed in its presence. Dido knows how to make good music, and she does it well. She sings and paints pictures with her lyrics and voice, and you can visualise it so strongly in your head. Dido is a true artist, and her enduring popularity is a testament to this. Buy this album now, you won't regret it.
Life for Rent Poster
The dance beats are fresher here than on Dido's debut No Angel, the production is clean and new, and she has great knack for tuneful modern folk-pop. 200 gram vinyl.Despite its somewhat polite, trip-hoppy surface, Dido Armstrong?s music frequently rests on a melancholy that can only be called courageous in the current pop world. Few singer-songwriters with 12 million record sales behind them would offer a single such as Life for Rent?s "White Flag," which is in part an apology for the "mess and destruction" the narrator has left with her lover. Emotions are even stickier on other tracks, with Dido?s Dusty-ish voice coolly sweeping through "Don?t Leave Home," one of the creepiest codependent-love songs since "Every Breath You Take," and in "Who Makes You Feel," ticking off a list of reasons why an affair is dying, while also admitting that she still loves the guy. It?s a hard-won romanticism, too, that pokes its head up in the tough-minded "This Land is Mine" and "Do You Have a Little Time" ("I?d like to hold you still/Remind you of all you?ve missed"). A knotty and rewarding album. --Rickey Wright
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