"When I make a record, all I'm ever trying to do is make something I want to listen to," says Dido, who just wrapped up work on her second album, Life for Rent, due September 9th. What she wants to listen to is a mix of dance, hip-hop and rock, a pairing of electronic and acoustic music much like her debut, 1999's No Angel. But this time around, she's "gotten more extreme with the beats."

Dido describes the first single, "White Flag", as an "anthem type song" set to hip-hop beats. It's a classic, I-still-love-you-but-I'll-never-admit-it song in which she sings, "And when we meet, which I'm sure we will/All that is there will be there still/I'll let it pass and hold my tongue/And you'll think that I've moved on." "A proper love song," Dido says, laughing. "Just that things don't work out . . . what a surprise!"

And the title track, she explains, is an equally anthemic song about "not being afraid to do all the things that you actually dreamed of doing in your life." Elsewhere, Life for Rent offers up big dance tracks. "Sand in My Shoes" is a "summery dance song" about the letdown after returning from vacation. But Dido also drops the electronic tools for a simple acoustic sound on "Mary's in India" and "This Land Is Mine."

Despite No Angel's multi-platinum sales and the hype around the Eminem collaboration (he sampled her "Thank You" to popular effect on his single "Stan"), Dido kept production work in the family, working once again with her brother Rollo, a producer and member of Faithless.

And don't expect any "Dido From the Block" songs. "I'll never as long as I live write a song about what it is to be famous," she says. "At that point, remove me from this life -- I've lost it."

CHRISTINA SARACENO
(June 20, 2003)