Boots and Beats Beneath the Bed: Dido's No Angel

WHEN HIP-HOPPERS go anywhere from Spandau Ballet to Annie to Diana Ross and David Bowie to Kenny Rogers for music – as Prince Be, Jay-Z, Puffy, and Wyclef Jean all have done to top- drawer effect – are they being perverse? Campy? Craven? Lazy? For any of those pejorative answers, you can thank the great '60s-sired conclusions of rock, surely one of the more consistently religious sets of aesthetic attitudes of the 20th century. You know the disposition, all arrogance and superiority: It's the one that prompts letter writers to decry the end of civilization and judgment when Rolling Slone anoints "Staying Alive" as a great single – or, right now, has Coldplay fans regarding you with alarm if you hear the pain in a Britney Spears hit.