By Johnny Donaldson

Collegian Staff

Dido

Life For Rent

Arista

Dido’s 1999 debut “No Angel” was the perfect backdrop music for a quick SUV run to Starbucks. But her smooth mix of folk, chill-out and electronic music – dubbed folk-tronica by some enterprising souls – was hardly the most likely music to catch anyone’s attention. The unruffled contours of “No Angel” were more suited to playing inside yuppie hangouts than rocking the radio airwaves, especially since this was the era of teenybopper pop and angry nu-metal.

Not exactly the perfect environment for releasing a record by a former trip-hop chanteuse who could convey chilliness and warmth often at the same moment. That is, until Eminem sampled her song “Thank You” in his deranged fan epic “Stan,” which led to the left-field success of “No Angel,” that is, worldwide sales of 12 million, making her one of the most successful solo female singers from Britain – ever.

How do you follow up that kind of pressure? For Dido, you wait four years and release an album that doesn’t differ that far from the formula of the former, but perfects it with a newer musical skills and emotional maturity, as well as letting the darker hues edge their way to the forefront.

The songs on “Life For Rent,” like those on “No Angel,” focus on romance, but with Dido breaking off an engagement to her former fianc