Dido has sold eighty billion albums around the world and helped clear the way for coma-pop artists to truly blossom in the Noughties (James Blunt sends his thanks, and a cat), but where has she been for the past couple of years? We haven't heard from her since her 2003 album 'Life For Rent' (or, as Popjustice once put it - I can't find a link but it's stuck with me all this time - 'Personality for rent, one woman owner, rarely used.'). That's five years! An incredibly long time in the world of pop music, and certainly enough for many to suspect a large chunk of her fans would have found their way out from under the doona by now, never to purchase her particular brand of sleepy mewling again.

Well, her time out of the spotlight is ov-ah - she's coming back with a new record she's made with acclaimed producer Jon Brion.

Pop star Dido has announced her return to the music scene with a new album following a five-year absence.

Safe Trip Home is the follow up to 2003's Life For Rent, which became the UK's fourth biggest selling album of the decade.

'Safe Trip Home', eh? Other working titles probably included 'Dull Trip Home', 'Incident Free Trip Home', 'Almost Offensively Inoffensive Trip Home', etc.

Don't Believe In Love will be the first single off the new album, due for release in November. The tracks were produced by Jon Brion, Dido and Ark, and was recorded in Los Angeles and London.

And if you believe the stuff Jon Brion was saying about the album, this one might even be good!

Brion says Dido is moving away from the mainstream pop/rock of her first two releases, which have sold 6.2 million copies combined in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

"She wants something less glossy and further left," Brion reveals. "I think people have disregarded the emotional aspects of her writing, because the way the records have been presented make the music seem a little flat. But in terms of her singing, she's just an absolutely unbelievable, naturally great singer, in truth one of the greatest I've ever worked with. There's a certain kind of restraint in record making that she doesn't want anymore. That's good. That's a recipe for finding new things."

Will Dido juggle kittens with this latest effort, or will she surprise us all by delivering an interesting and ballsy third record? Time will tell, and we wait with bated breaazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Tags: au | dido | jon brion | music