Dido – No Freedom

This is Dido, doing what she does best.

Tm: So last week was pretty much the week that music came back in its entirety. First there was Bowie, then Justin Timberlake, and then Destiny’s Child. Cascada put out a track she’s hoping to represent Germany with, of which we’ll naturally have more in due course. And then, to close the week, there was this.

Tom: My word, that’s lovely. And it sounds, well, exactly like Dido used to. Like Bowie’s comeback, this could easily have been a track from Dido’s glory years.

Tim: Of course, since you’re launching on a Friday evening, you’ll want it to be a track to get people ready for the weekend, a big dance ban– no? Oh, fair enough then. But this is Dido, doing what she does best. And it’s…well, it’s alright.

Tom: I absolutely loved this on first listen – particularly when combined with the odd, ephemal-Americana video – but I suspect this may be one of those tracks that I grow to dislike the more I hear it.

Tim: You think? For me it was…okay, and then kept being okay. I was joking about the dance-ness of it (believe it or not), but I still wouldn’t mind something with a little more impact. You know, something like Hunter or White Flag – great tracks with energy, a drumbeat, something you can really get into.

Tom: See, I really got into this – but then I managed to predict the rest of the chorus based on the first line, and even air-drummed along with a drum fill that I didn’t know was coming. It’s very nice on first listen because it sounds so familiar, but it’s also so trite that I don’t really want to hear it again.

Tim: Hmm, fair enough. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s bad – it’s tranquil and lovely – and I don’t dislike it at all. It’s just, it’s the sort of Dido track that may well be improved by having an angry white rapper on top of it, and that’s not the style that I’d want to come back with.