Singer Dido gives birth to son Stanley

Singer Dido

Dido has a treble reason to celebrate; not only does her 40th birthday fall on Christmas Day, she has also welcomed her first child into the world.

However, the talented singer has opted to name her newborn Stanley - a bizarre choice considering the morbid lyrics of her No1 hit with Eminem.

The song, released in 2000, focuses on a fictitious fan, named Stan, who bombards the US rapper with letters in the hope he will write back.

However when he fails to receive a reply from his hero, Stan seals his fate by killing his girlfriend and their unborn child, before committing suicide.

Yet, in a cruel twist, Eminem does write back apologising for being too busy - by which time devoted fan Stan is already dead.

Dido – whose full name is Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O’Malley Armstrong – gave birth to her son Stanley in July this year at the Portland Hospital in central London.

Baby Stanley is her first child with husband Rohan Gavin, a writer who also directed a pop promo for her two years ago.

The couple are believed to have married quietly last year and now live in North London.

Miss Armstrong’s 2001 debut album No Angels, which featured the singles Thank You and Here With Me, is one of the biggest selling albums ever by a British female, selling more than 21 million copies worldwide.

It secured her two Brit Awards in 2002 for Best Female and Best Album.

The follow-up Life For Rent, released in 2003, then confirmed her superstardom with sales of more than 12 million and two more Brit Awards.

Her last album Safe Trip Home came out in 2008. However, it did not enjoy the same commercial success but saw her nominated for an Academy Award for her song If I Rise from the album.

The star had been due to perform the song at the Oscars earlier this year, before cancelling the appearance when she found out she was pregnant. 

She wrote at the time: ‘Hello everyone, It’s been a month of amazing news for me and now I have some more to share.

‘Me and my husband Rohan are expecting a baby and we’re beyond happy and excited about it.

‘So as some of you already know, I won’t be able to travel to LA for the Oscars ceremony to perform If I Rise.

Obviously I’m really gutted about not being there – going to the Oscars has literally been a dream of mine since I was about nine.'

She said she had embraced her pregnancy, adding: ‘There’s a real calmness about it which I think is really nice. Your decisions are sort of made for you. You just have this priority that is unchangeable and I think that’s a great calmness that comes from that.’

Safe Trip Home also featured the song Northern Skies. In 2009, Mr Gavin then directed a short-film to go with the song.

Since her commercial peak, Miss Armstrong has had to contend with personal upheaval.

In 2003, she separated from fiancé Bob Page, a lawyer and her partner of seven years, whom she had credited as being the inspiration for her work.

Then, in 2006, she had to face the death of her father William, the former head of publishing house Sidgwick & Jackson.

She dropped all work commitments as her father’s health deteriorated, going to see him in hospital twice a day and spending time with her mother, Clare, and older brother Rollo, a member of dance trio Faithless.

The singer – who is estimated to be worth more than £28million - had an unusual childhood, growing up in Islington in a house full of books with no television and no visitors. 

She attended Westminster School before going to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Apart from caring for her son, Miss Armstrong said she was currently working on a new album.

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Google launches music service

Google Music

(Reuters) - Google Inc has turned on the music at its new online store, aiming to wrest the lead from Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc in audio entertainment distribution despite the absence of a major record label.

Google Music, with more 13 million songs, will be integrated with Android Market, the company's online store for smartphone apps and videos as it plays catch-up with its rivals. Apple, Amazon and Facebook have to varying degrees integrated music into their core online and mobile products.

Google Music will allow the Web search leader to do the same by letting consumers access music from various Internet-connected devices and easily share tracks with friends.

But analysts said the lack of soundtracks from Warner Music - a major label whose artists include Led Zeppelin and Prince, among others - will limit the appeal of Google Music.

"They've got to get that catalog filled pretty quickly," said Mike McGuire, an analyst at industry research firm Gartner. "It's a launch, but it's kind of like a work-in-progress."

Google Music was unveiled at a splashy event at the Mr. Brainwash Studios in Hollywood, California on Wednesday.

Google has negotiated U.S. deals with three of the four major music companies: Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group; Sony Corp's Sony Music Entertainment; and EMI. It has also signed deals with the increasingly influential independent label group Merlin and London-based Beggar's Banquet label group, home to the year's biggest selling artist, Adele.

Analysts say selling online music is unlikely to provide much of a lift to Google's revenue. But they say Google needs to be in the market to ensure that its Android-based mobile efforts can match offerings from competitors.

Android is the world's No. 1 smartphone operating system, powering about 200 million devices worldwide. But without a music service, Android-based smartphones and tablets may not be as attractive to consumers seeking a product that offers a seamless media experience.

And with music storage increasingly moving to remote Internet servers in "the cloud" rather than on the device itself, companies like Google and Apple have a way to keep users locked in to their respective mobile services, said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.

"Everyone is using music and media as a jail. Ultimately, this stuff is going to be stored in the cloud and it becomes harder and harder to switch systems," he said.

To help jump-start the new music store, Google said it will offer one free song for consumers to download every day.

Google will also allow consumers to share purchased songs with friends on the Google+ social network. The feature will give users of Google+ a "free, full-play" of songs purchased by their friends.

"Recommendations from friends are the single most important way that people discover music and we think that this feature has the potential to really transform purchasing behavior," said Zahavah Levine, Google's director of content partnerships for Android, at Wednesday's event.

Music executives said that even though sales have struggled in recent years, music usage has never been more popular on different types of formats like social networks and mobile devices.

Facebook, the world's largest social network, unveiled a tab in September through which music services like Spotify, Rdio and MOG enable Facebook users to share music. Amazon has also long been a major music retailer and has a music locker service

Earlier this year, Google unveiled the Google Music beta, which allowed users to upload their music to Google servers, and access the music from multiple devices.

Shares of Google, which finished Wednesday's regular session at $611.47, were up 72 cents in after-hours trading.

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