Dido is a mistress of mundane triumph

Two of the most successful female artists of pop era - between them have sold 200 million albums globally - visit London for live shows during the same week. Yeah, Madonna and Dido grace the circuit simultaneously. Maddy - sold in the region of 180 million albums - hasn’t got anything to promote really and even less to prove, methinks… Dido has something to prove and promote her second disc, ‘Life For Rent’, with first London shows in three years.

While Material Mum’s always been seen as the leader of the pack despite her limited talent and vocal quality that at best is dubious, the much more gifted Dido is seen as also-ran and her reputation is a maker of music for suburban soirees and generally people who have given up on pop music… In a sense it reminds of a electronic duo Client who shore a problem of convincing people their two albums [‘City’ is due out at the end of September] is a valid antidote to the ‘baby cake‘ fillies out there…

Perhaps Madonna - Esther, or whatever she is calling herself this week - has something to prove after all, that she is still Cool Mama. Well, the trouble is… SHE IS. Dido, is her direct opposite. She doesn’t thrill, she is static, not provocative, a product of stiff Brit upbringing and maybe she should look at Goldfrapp for some tips on performance liberation.

It is not enough to tell your audience that ‘Take My Hand’ was written “When I had discovered sex, I was very excited.” [Few days earlier she said she had written it to get the boys…] But then, what do I know? It appears that plenty of females can identify with her lyrics and enough man dream of bedding her… Personally, having met the lady, it’s not I’d say no if we were marooned on a proverbial desert island, but it would have to be that desolate.

Still, one characteristic Dido excels in is - looking rounded, soft and womanly [albeit cleavage and booty deficiency] whilst Madonna has beefed herself up… It might make the 46-year-old feel good but men don’t need fictitious wrestling but sex…

Dido's songs sound appropriately for supermarkets and DIY enthusiasts, pop music for the Stepford society, dull and insipid, bordering on suicide inducing… She needs to look at the same recipe booklet as Client and sex up things. Any men with taste - yes, there are some left, thanks - would tell you that you gotta be a wee pervy to fancy what she does…

She plays all her hits that get more lifvely onstage although ‘White Flag’ echoes nauseatingly, the set-list from hell… She admitted on the first of her three nights at Brixton Academy that she shouldn’t have written about the break-up with her fiancé Bob Page.

“This was a messy song to write, and sometime it’s messy to sing. I should never have written it because it caused a whole heap of trouble in my life.”

Ms Armstrong also told us how she got beaten up “by a much bigger girl” in the venue’s toilet at a gig she went to. Is this what makes her the heroine for lonely/confused/binge-drinking females? But then, Katie Pierce has claimed that women come over to say how Jordan is their role-model!?

What is missing here is a hotty-totty of an all-night session, passion to screw one’s brains out, a mythical ‘scorcher’. It is an erotica free zone and despite speeding up faster tracks and Latinising slower cuts - the five member backing band contains two percussionists - it is still too courteous. For all her ‘opening heart’ onstage - she ain’t shaking any bits.

Dido is like a scoreless footie game, basketball match without dunks, F-One race with Schumacher winning again… She is so middle class, it is bland. But, alike America, the worst things about it are also the best. Thus, a triumph.