No Angel

No Angel is Dido’s debut album. Originally released in 1999, it found a mass audience in 2001, and according to her official web site it went on to achieve sales in excess of over fifteen million copies worldwide.

The success of No Angel was spurred on by Eminem sampling Dido’s track, “Thank You” on “Stan”, a track from his The Marshall Mathers LP album, released in 2000. The Marshall Mathers LP reached #1 on the US and Canadian charts, and Dido appeared in the music video for “Stan”, which was the third single from the album, playing the fictional character Stan’s long-suffering girlfriend. While the song only reached #51 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA, it went to #1 in the UK and Australia and was an international hit. “Stan” was nominated for a Grammy award for the track (Dido did not sing with Eminem at the ceremony; Elton John sang Dido’s section).

The album also began to reach a mass audience, when the debut single, “Here With Me”, was chosen as the title music to the hit TV series Roswell. Due to record company conflicts, the album was released in the USA first in 1999, and began surfacing in Dido’s homeland, the UK, on import alone. In December 2000, a month ahead of its official UK release, No Angel went top 10 in the UK; a month later it hit #1 when it was officially released as a special edition, featuring the videos to “Here With Me” and “Thank You.