★★★☆☆
Who could have anticipated the triumphant return of Craig David? The Hampshire-born master of all things smooth became a sensation at the end of the 1990s, when he documented a knackering week with a new girlfriend on the hit 7 Days.
With his easy charm and carefully trimmed beard, David seemed like the kind of well-behaved lover who would fold his clothes neatly before a night of passion and be nice to the parents in the morning. He was the acceptable, suburban face of urban music culture. By 2000 he was huge, releasing the fastest-selling debut album by a British artist. Then the comedian Leigh Francis reimagined David as an angry northerner with a giant rubber face on the television series Bo’ Selecta! and it was all over, as quickly as it had begun.
Now David is back to great acclaim, with a No 1 album in late 2016 and a sold-out arena tour at the end of 2017, and here’s the remarkable thing: nothing has actually changed. He may be singing about hashtags and emojis on For the Gram, he may get the grime MC AJ Tracey to do a guest spot on Somebody Like Me, but David is essentially the same cheery prince of romance he was 20 years ago, albeit with more sophistication to his architecturally sculpted facial hair and with a few new production techniques to augment his caramel tones.
“Girl, when I’m here next to you it feels so natural,” he croons on Magic, a line that he might have sung when he first broke through aged 19, even though he is now 36. Over the Latin pop of Brand New he hopes to take a ride with a señorita, bolstering his chances by complimenting her features, like he’s on a package holiday in Magaluf with the lads. And when he sings Love Me Like It’s Yesterday David pretty much confirms that what he’d really like, even more than a señorita with lovely features, is a time machine to take him back to 1999.
While none of this shows much in the way of development, David’s words of seduction are gentle rather than creepy, his voice is rich and soulful, and there is something appealing about the way he doesn’t try to punch above his weight by getting all deep or political. By riding out the damage Bo’ Selecta! wreaked on his credibility, and not resorting to appearances on reality television shows to keep him in the public eye, David has bided his time. Now he is catering to a nostalgia for late-Nineties R&B in style. (Sony)