Songoftheday 8/12/22 - My tea's gone cold I'm wondering why I got out of bed at all, the morning rain clouds up my window and I can't see at all...

 

 

"Thankyou" - Dido

from the album No Angel (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 29 

Today's song comes from singer/songwriter Dido, who grew up Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong in London, England, but from a child was nicknamed Dido after the legendary queen and founder of Carthage along the North African coast. (Her brother Rowland Constantine O'Malley was dubbed "Rollo".) Dido went to a set of music-oriented schools, and after leaving college for business started her career in music. Rollo did as well, and put together a rave dance band, Faithless, in the mid-1990's. Dido sang on one of the cuts from Faithless' debut album Reverence, "Flowerstand Man". That song and her demos led to Dido getting signed to Arista Records in the U.S., while parent company BMG eventually also bought out Rollo's indie label Cheeky Records. 

In the late spring of 1999, Dido released her debut album No Angel. Mostly produced by Dido and Rollo, the set starts off with a few cuts helmed by the singer with "ringer" Rick Nowels, who was notable for Belinda Carlisle's Heaven On Earth and Madonna's Ray Of Light albums. But the first track from the record to make waves on the radio, second single "Don't Think Of Me", was produced by Martin "Youth" Glover, who was in the band Killing Joke. The song made a modest impression at the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, where it hit #35 on the radio chart in Billboard magazine in May of 2000, a year after the album was released. After that, the original lead single, "Here With Me", one of the Nowels co-writes which was featured on the TV show Roswell, finally got traction, rising to #21 on the Adult Top-40 list in October, while "bubbling under" Billboard's pop Hot 100 in America. Finally when the BMG business was settled and the album was released internationally,at the start of 2001, "Here With Me" became a big success worldwide, reaching the top ten in Portugal (#2), New Zealand (#3), the United Kingdom (#4), France (#4), Hungary (#5), Switzerland (#6), Finland (#6), Spain (#7), Belgium (#7F/#25W), Ireland (#8), Norway (#8), and Austria (#9). 

But what really kickstarted Dido's path to stardom was the third single "Thankyou", which rapper Eminem co-opted for his crazed-fan opus "Stan". Though the song didn't make the top half of the pop chart in America, it was far bigger than chart positions say, with the song marking a point in his work where he was taken seriously, most notably by helping Eminem with the Grammy for Best Rap Album in 2001. But internationally, that single was massive, topping the charts in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Australia, Austria, Ireland, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Romania, Iceland, and making the top ten in Belgium (#2W/#3F), Spain (#3), Sweden (#3), the Netherlands (#3), Norway (#3), Portugal (#3), France (#4), and Croatia (#6). Dido even appeared in the music video as the girlfriend of the titular character, singing her chorus from "Thankyou"...

Her contribution to "Stan" eventually led to mainstream radio finding the original of "Thankyou" and playing it on the more reserved formats. Released in America at the start of 2001, only a month after "Stan" peaked on the charts, the song found an entirely new audience. Written by Dido and Paul Herman, and produced by the singer with brother Rollo, the song was inspired by a low point in her life when she was evicted from her home. But oddly, and rather creepily, midway through each pessimistic verse she sings about someone who is there for her and brightens her day. It's totally vague as to who that is, whether a lover, a family member, you could even interpolate a religious figure (though I don't think they'd call her on the phone). Nevertheless that dichotomy paired with the serenely-paced production gives a misplaced sense of calm to the piece. The verses do make this an entirely different record than "Stan" cribbing the chorus, and it was rewarded by the biggest hit of her career. The music video follows that disturbing eviction storyline even farther to drive the gloom home, though her smiling demeanor is really unsettling in this clip...

"Thankyou" became Dido's first (and only) top ten in on the Billboard Hot 100 in April of 2001. The song spent an entire year on their older-skewing Adult Top-40 chart, spending nine weeks at #1, while on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") format list it spent a month (four weeks) on top with 81 weeks on the list. "Thankyou" also got to #2 on Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, and #3 on the rather new Adult Album Alternative ("Triple A"), or "hipster" rock format. The remixes of the track, done by the Deep Dish team, helped it take a week at #1 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart. Internationally, the single topped the chart in Portugal and Croatia, reached the top ten in her native United Kingdom (#3), New Zealand (#3), Ireland (#5), Spain (#9), and Canada (#10), and made the top 40 in Switzerland (#16), Norway (#17), Belgium (#22F/#29W), Austria (#25), the Netherlands (#29), France (#30) and came a notch from the top-40 in Germany and Italy. The No Angel album, released in June of 1999 in the U.S. climbed to #4 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, spending over a year on the list and selling over four million copies.

A fourth single from the record, "Hunter" (another Nowels track), didn't get as much attention in the States (most likely since "Thankyou" was overplayed and stiffled a follow-up), and while it hit #16 at the Adult Top-40 format, it missed the pop Hot 100 altogether. The clubs were more forgiving, sending the song to #9 on the Dance Club Play tally. Internationally, the single hit the top ten in Belgium (#4W/#7F), Croatia (#9), and Greece (#10), while reaching the top-40 in the UK (#17) and New Zealand (#28). But don't fret, Dido will be back to the series.

(9/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the dance remix from Deep Dish that helped "Thankyou" top the dance chart...

 

 Next up is Dido appearing live on Top Of The Pops as the song was climbing the charts...

and now an even more stripped down take for the British late night show Parkinson in 2003..

Dido sang "Thankyou" at the Live 8 charity concert event in 2005 using some African percussion...

and finally, an acoustic version from 2019....

Up tomorrow: This colorful singer is feeling nauseous.