Still On My Mind - Dido: Review

Dido

is the once superstar British pop singer who blew up the charts with huge hit albums in 1999 and 2003. Since then her efforts have been sparse and less appreciated but given her pedigree there is reason to believe Dido can contribute something late in her career. 

Review By Lavender:

I am very well aware of and appreciate many of Dido's hits from early in her career and I have always been willing to admit she is certainly talented. Unfortunately I haven't heard much in the way of her studio albums that really thrilled me, despite this I believed in her talent to come around on Still On My Mind and deliver a good record without falling into the pitfalls that most pop artists do when rounding into the later acts of their careers, she successfully accomplishes one of these.

Thankfully at no point on the project does Dido ever feel like she is giving up any of her artistic desires in favor of critical success, as time and time again on this album she chooses much more somber and impactful instrumentation rather than trend chasing and fishing for a comeback hit. This makes the album far more tolerable than I had anticipated it may be, but tolerable is all that most of the songs on this album strive for. 

Tracks like Give You Up, Hell After This, Still On My Mind and Have To Stay have features that help them stand out but their refusal to put any serious pressure behind their attributes creates a strict ceiling for the quality of these songs. While some of them contain good hooks and some of them feature interesting instrumentals none of them really bring it all together in a way that satisfies all the desires a good pop song should. 

Hurricanes and Walking By were the only two tracks I came out of the album unequivocally enjoying but they aren't perfect and its easy to find songs on any number of the many pop albums released this year that are better and more memorable. Thankfully there are also not very many tracks that I would say are complete duds. Mad Love has one of the only hooks on the album that misses the mark completely and it makes it very hard to get behind the track. Chances is a completely lifeless instrumental stitched together behind a completely lifeless performance, it sounds like the whole track was computer generated.

Everything else on the project is either boring techno pop that never really hits its climax, or a pretty but ultimately gutless pop ballad, which leaves me conflicted. I am happy this isn't an album of one of last decades premiere pop starts trend chasing in the new age, but these songs so badly deserve more work and attention all around. Ultimately the biggest fault of Still On My Mind is that as an experience it is so forgettable. 4/10

For more pop check out my review of Avril Lavigne's Head Above Water here.