Three albums down the line, Dido is still making good music. The one-time hit wonder has certainly come a long way since she got the break of a lifetime a few years ago, when Eminem remixed her song Thank You for his hit song Stan. Surely, going by the name of her new album, Safe Trip Home, one can say that Dido has arrived and very successfully.

Dido Florian Cloud De Bounevialle Armstrong was born on Christmas day in 1971 in London, England. Her unusual name is attributed to the African warrior queen she was named after. Her mother, Clare, was a French poet and her father, William O'Malley Armstrong, was an Irish publisher and former managing director of Sidgwick and Jackson (he passed away in 2006). Dido has made it clear that 'Dido' is now her real name and not simply a stage name or a nickname. As a child, she had to deal with the ambiguous and unusual nature of her name, which led to her being bullied and even to her pretending to have an ordinary name. As she explains: “To be called one thing and christened another is actually very confusing and annoying. It's one of the most irritating things that my parents did to me. Florian is a German man's name. That's just mean. To give your child a whole lot of odd names. They were all so embarrassing. ...I thought it was cruel to call me Dido and then expect me to just deal with it.”

But Dido put this behind her and instead, positively followed her dream of making music. She found entertainment in music, as did her brother the noted DJ and producer Rowland Constantine O'Malley 'Rollo' Armstrong, lead singer of the popular British trip-hop band Faithless. Dido kept busy teaching herself how to play the recorder (a kind of flute), which led to her acceptance into the prestigious Guildhall School of Music in London at age six. Within no time this talent for playing instruments became clearer when she moved from the recorder to playing the piano and the violin. She listened to her brother's old records (from The Clash to Duran Duran) and toured the UK with a British classical music ensemble. But her interest grew from just instruments to vocalists. Jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald fascinated this 16-year-old to no extent. Influenced by her brother's eclectic record collection and the sultry Ella, Dido began to sing with several bands that she came across.

Her brother however, was not very happy with the idea of his little sister singing, for he thought she had an awful voice. But Dido did not intend to give up singing. She took up a job in publishing and attended law school by day and sang lead vocals with a band at different London venues by night. Eventually, it was her brother who led her to the start of her music career. Dido appeared on the debut album of Faithless' Reverence in 1996, which went on to sell five million copies. Later, she even toured with her brother's group for about two years, which gave her exposure to even more musical experience. Hard working as she was, whenever she was back in London, she recorded demos of her own songs for a chance to secure a record label. By now, Rollo knew that Dido was talented, for even record label Arista Records was at her door. Dido began to work on solo material, developing a lushly ethereal sound combining elements of acoustic pop and electronica.

The record company heard some of her demos and invited her to meet with top line producer Clive Davis in 1997. She sang for Davis, who signed her for the record company.

From then on there was no looking back. In mid-1999 she released her debut album No Angel, produced by Dido with the help of other contributors (including Rollo). The album contained hits such as Here with Me and the sultry Thank You. Dido also later worked as songwriter on the Faithless 1999 album Sunday 8PM.

Thank You catapulted her to instant stardom when rapper Eminem sampled it as the chorus line for his dark song Stan which introduced Dido to the US. She also appeared in the music video as Stan's long-suffering girlfriend. Demand for the original escalated quickly, and Thank You became a Top 5 smash in early 2001, as did the album, which topped sales of 12 million copes worldwide. No Angel spent over 60 weeks on the album charts and has been certified 4X platinum, on the strength of Thank You and Hunter.

With an appearance alongside Eminem on Saturday Night Live, as well as solo appearances on talk shows such as Late Night With Conan O'Brien, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Late Show With Craig Kilborn and Intense American Airplay, Dido's star rose quickly in America and Europe. She announced that she was taking a sabbatical in 2002, during which she began to write and record her second album.

Dido returned to the spotlight two years later. In September 2003, she released her long-awaited follow-up Life for Rent. This sophomore effort was layered with personal hardship and heartbreak, marking some of Dido's more honest material yet. The album burrowed its way into millions of hearts, hitting number one in 26 countries and lighting up the airwaves in many more. Preceded by the hit single White Flag the album sold over 152,000 copies on the first day alone in the UK, and went on to sell over 400,000 in the first week. Three further singles Life For Rent, Don't Leave Home and Sand in My Shoes were the favourites.

Dido embarked on a worldwide tour in support of the album, by the end of which, she was ready for a bit of a breather. “It was a whirlwind,” she says. “As far as I was concerned, I was making this little underground record for me to listen to and then, suddenly, eight years later, I was getting off this incredible speeding train. I'd had an amazing time, but I guess I needed to take a step back, reconnect with normal life and bring the focus 100 per cent back to music.”

After a hiatus of over four years she has returned with a brand new album Safe Trip Home with all new material and minus her brother Rollo, who co-wrote and co-produced her first two albums.

Never Want to Say It's Love and the string-soaked Let's Do the Things We Normally Do are standouts on the album besides the first single Don't Believe in Love. Collaborators on the album include Brian Eno and Mick Fleetwood. While recording in Los Angeles she learned a lot about engineering, arranging, mastering. She even took music courses at UCLA.

Dido's softly-expressed thoughts, parables, feelings, hopes and concerns flow unfettered from Safe Trip Home. It is a record of love and loss, strength and surrender, highs and lows. And, as with her previous two albums, Dido, who stands at 5' 7” (1.70 m) shows an astonishing knack for extracting life's universals from its little details. She bares her heart in her music in a way that she doesn't in any other public domain. Tune into this brilliant singer, songwriter, drummer, pianist, violinist on her promising new album.

Here With Me was chosen as the theme song of the hit show Roswell. Thank Youappeared on the soundtrack of the Gwyneth Paltrow film Sliding Doors. Dido's widely emulated hairstyle in 2001 became known as the 'Dido flip'.