Dido - c/d?

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z=likelihood of being in a Dorothy Perkins Changing room

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 9 February 2004 14:38 (twenty years ago) link

curse you all, I've got white flag going round and round in my head, and I fear I'm humming snippets out loud in the office. Thank god we've got workmen in drilling so no-one can hear me.

― Vicky (Vicky), Monday, 9 February 2004 14:43 (twenty years ago) link

Graph smarph. Back the original question for a moment. Let's agree, for the purposes of the argument, that Dido is indeed bland. I do find it really odd how people seem to get more wound up by bland things than by in your face irritating ones. How anyone could get angry about Dido is beyond my ken.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 9 February 2004 14:44 (twenty years ago) link

The bitch ran over my cat.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 9 February 2004 14:45 (twenty years ago) link

She stole my best girlie

(x-post)

― Matt (Matt), Monday, 9 February 2004 14:46 (twenty years ago) link

Indeed. I have 'White Flag' in my head right now, not for the4 first time, and it really isn't that fuckin' bad, compared with other long-term stuck in my head songs (recently 'PIMP' and 'Shut Up', unfortunately for me).

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 9 February 2004 14:46 (twenty years ago) link

The only way it makes sense to me is if you're some redfaced PASSION obsessive.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 9 February 2004 14:47 (twenty years ago) link

beyond my ken.

Is it also beyond our Ken?

I have flipping Scissor Sisters and that godawful 'Somebody to Love' cover in my head now. From Saturday night watching crap pop videos. Aaaaaargh I can still see the stupid electric eels in the Scissor Sisters video.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Monday, 9 February 2004 14:49 (twenty years ago) link

i was going to add the omitted line 'now Mary's got the shits after traipsing round Calcutta' but then i accidentally kicked the reset button on my PC with my right foot

― stevem (blueski), Monday, 9 February 2004 14:57 (twenty years ago) link

'might have been the ghee they use instead of butter'

― Alfie (Alfie), Monday, 9 February 2004 14:59 (twenty years ago) link

"As the soon rises, on Mary, she fouls her pants"

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Monday, 9 February 2004 15:07 (twenty years ago) link

people who get angry about successful bland bands are just jealous. being "overrated" is such a crap way to judge anything. something mediocre that gets heralded as AMAZING is still better than something crap that is universally known as crap.

Unjustifiably criticising something as AWFUL when it's in fact just mediocre is no more accurate, and possibly more annoying than over-hyping something that isn't great.

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 9 February 2004 15:30 (twenty years ago) link

On Dido's album of the same name, ''White Flag'' is a strong song, but the lyric's elegant negotiation between guilt and surrender is neutered by the polite production. Timbaland's version turns the whine into a genuine ache. Isolated, Dido's voice is gorgeous, roughed-up but sweet: ''There will be no white flag above my door/I'm in love and always will be.'' Timbaland may have been hired simply to repackage Dido's music, but the song has been served. A man who has never studied an instrument is being paid many thousands of dollars to improve on the work of a busload of professional musicians. Pop opens many doors and this is one: a great record can knock any paradigm out of shape, if only for three minutes.

― Enribaland (Enrique), Monday, 9 February 2004 16:57 (twenty years ago) link

WUH?

― stevem (blueski), Monday, 9 February 2004 16:58 (twenty years ago) link

According to SFJ's artickle in the NYT, Timbo is remixing 'White Flag'.

― Phenrique (Enrique), Monday, 9 February 2004 17:01 (twenty years ago) link

"gorgeous", haha.

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 9 February 2004 17:02 (twenty years ago) link

END TIMES

― stevem (blueski), Monday, 9 February 2004 17:03 (twenty years ago) link

Sash gets lotsa love on ILM. I can't say that article has won me over. But I suppose NYT pays a bit better than VV, so hey...

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 9 February 2004 17:04 (twenty years ago) link

haha i thought at first Enribaland said "a great record can knock any DIAPHRAGMS out of shape"!!

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 9 February 2004 17:14 (twenty years ago) link

but only for 3 minutes

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 9 February 2004 17:21 (twenty years ago) link

Further to the reference to Jo Whiley's changing taste in music, doesn't most peoples? Or do DJs owe it to their fans to keep playing the same old shit (yes, Lamacq, I'm talking about you)? Anyway, I always thought Whiley's music choice was pretty mainstream, except for her attempts to be into whatever the current NME/MM trend was (this generally lasted as long as the inkies said it was OK). Which is kind of indie mainstream I guess. Her current enthusiasm for the Darkness seems no stranger than her past enthusiasm for, say, Menswear.

Mind you, I don't like Missy Elliott, so I know jack shit about real music apparently.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 9 February 2004 18:39 (twenty years ago) link

I heard 'White Flag' again this morning. I think the 'bland' analysis is inadequate: while the music is bland, the lyrical content isn't exactly; ver 'do is often alluding to non-bland type behaviour (in 'White Flag' she's left hella 'mess and destruction' and advises against living by 'the rules'; she claims that her life is 'for rent'; she wants to be 'a hunter' -- do you see?). But the music is all bland, yes. It's a dichotomy thang.

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 11 February 2004 14:23 (twenty years ago) link

Is there an easy definition of bland music. Ie more harmonics, clasical chord progressions, being in tune, not too loud. I wonder if you were to play Dido really loudly (the non-bland extreme being its loudness) if it would sound better.

I think White Flag was a triffic single, and Life For Rent speaks directly (perhaps a touch too cynically) to the late tewnties renting masses in London.

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 11 February 2004 14:27 (twenty years ago) link

N. is v OTM above.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 11 February 2004 14:28 (twenty years ago) link

i've listened to some of the new Zero 7 album and it's likely to attract the same 'blandness' criticism as Dido's material, although i would point out that musically 'When It Falls' is somewhere between Dido and Air, leaning towards the latter in terms of sophisticated musical and melodic arrangements albeit with only sporadic flirtations with sonic psychedelia, surrealism and similar concepts but featuring a much more pedestrian approach to actual songwriting ala Dido.

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 11 February 2004 14:30 (twenty years ago) link

I think Pete's right about 'White Flag'. The blandness is a relative thing: Dido's first LP is sorta trip-hoppy (it was recorded in what? 1998) but with the ruff edges taken out. On 'Stan' the ruffness was actually added, the Portishead record hiss, etc. I dunno abt this LP, it seems less 'trip hop'.

Not sure about the 'late twenties' renting etcness -- esp coming from financially secure Dido! But I feel yr pain.

― ENRQ (Enrique), Wednesday, 11 February 2004 14:33 (twenty years ago) link

Bland - definition = UB40s "Swing Low Sweet Chariot". Everything about it is designed not to cause offence - everything mid-tempo, mid-pitch, nothing standing out, vaguely in keeping with the pereception of what the people who buy records want to hear.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 11 February 2004 16:04 (twenty years ago) link

what does 'Life For Rent' mean anyway?

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 11 February 2004 17:22 (twenty years ago) link

BIG PIMPIN

― Enrique (Enrique), Wednesday, 11 February 2004 17:23 (twenty years ago) link

I hear her a lot on R2. I don't think I like her records much. But I don't hate them either; hate can be reserved for other things.

I have heard her... 'speaking voice' and been turned off.

I think Markelby's question is good.

― the bellefox, Wednesday, 11 February 2004 17:27 (twenty years ago) link

I'd be more annoyed by Coldplay, nobody treats Dido as some form of high culture/spiritual experience. I dislike the way Dido slating is so often an outlet for a sort of hatred of women, not here really but in music discussions more generally.

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 11 February 2004 22:12 (twenty years ago) link

damn their high heels/standards

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 11 February 2004 22:14 (twenty years ago) link

Someone upthread said Dido had covered 'Grindin''. I said: Any cop? Now i'm thinking they were trying to get a rise outta me. Is it true? Did she really? Ma, it don't get more coffee table than this.

― ENRK (Enrique), Monday, 16 February 2004 11:19 (twenty years ago) link

Dido : Fading 35 y/o women
50 Cent : 16 y/o suburban boys.

The identity, problems, struggles of fantasy false self. [/pop-psych bs]

― Hunter (Hunter), Monday, 16 February 2004 19:52 (twenty years ago) link

twelve years pass...

"thank you" is 100% CLASSIC

― flappy bird, Thursday, 25 August 2016 05:04 (seven years ago) link

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