Craig David was there at the start of the UK garage explosion at the turn of the century. He then went on to making R&B records which weren't as good as his garage ones and as the years went on he was putting out records that weren't any good at all before fading into obscurity.
Then in 2016 he made a big comeback with a garage record which was the best thing he'd done since he was doing garage music originally.
He's kept on going since but I can't say I'm a fan of the more recent music he's been making.
This one still sounds decent though and retains its crown.
Following on from last years post about which artists have had Top 40 hits in both the 20th century and 2020s, here's a look at what has happened since.
It was the first week of 2021 when we had out next addition to the list. Jose Feliciano had 2 Top 40 hits to his name prior to this year which both came in the 60s, but neither were his festive hit "Feliz Navidad". It just scraped into the Top 40 amongst many other old Christmas records and returned the the Top 40 again at the end of the year.
Next up was the Nightcrawlers who received a credit on the track "Friday" which was an EDM remake by other DJs of "Push The Feelin On". It's a similar story for ATB who has credit on "Your Love (9pm)" which is a remake of "9pm (Till I Come)". Then Boney M received credit on an EDM remake of "Rasputin".
During the Euro's the fans started singing "Whole Again" by Atomic Kitten with different lyrics written for England manager Gareth Southgate. This was subsequently re-recorded by Atomic Kitten with these new lyrics so technically counts as a new record.
It had looked like we'd seen the last of Elton John in the Top 40, but then thanks to an EDM remake of "Sacrifice" and "Rocket Man" combined on a record called "Cold Heart" not only was Elton John back in the Top 40 he was topping the charts too.
In September we had the first 20th century act to hit the Top 40 in 2021 with completely new material and without the help of any modern artist. This was Abba who scored 2 Top 40 hits with their comeback.
Craig David added another Top 40 hit to his name with "Who You Are". As mentioned previously he only just qualifies as a 20th century artist but it can also be said that it was with the aid of a more modern artist as it was a collaboration with MNEK.
Then we had Elton John back again with another two chart toppers which were both collaborations with Ed Sheeran with the latter also featuring Ladbaby.
Finally we had the return of Frank Sinatra with a Christmas song that never made the Top 40 before.
Back in the 90s there was no shortage of acts way past their heyday who were still having big hits. Cliff Richard had 2 number ones for example. Many of the chart heavyweights would continue to have hits into the 21st Century.
By the 2010s though few of the older acts were still having hits and as we entered the era of streaming it almost ensured that new singles from acts who dominated the charts in previous years would no longer make the Top 40.
Now we're in the 2020s I thought it would be interesting to see which old timers are still managing to have Top 40 hits. A logical cut off point for me is the end of the 20th Century i.e. acts who made their Top 40 debut before 31st December 1999.
The rules are that the single has to be in the Top 40 for the first time this decade so all the Christmas songs making their annual visit to the Top 40 don't count. They also need to be the same entity as their 20th Century counterpart, for example Dave Grohl has had a hit this year as part of the Live Lounge Allstars and in the 20th Century as part of Nirvana and Foo Fighters, but it would need to be either a Nirvana or Foo Fighters hit to count. Collaboration's do count as let's face it pretty much everyone collaborates these days.
The first 20th Century debutant to score a Top 40 hit this year was Eminem. He had 3 hits at the same time, one of which was a number one. Eminem has seemingly kept himself relevant with the kids and had more Top 40 hits in the 2010s than any other decade.
Next up was Michael Ball who scored his first number one in collaboration with Captain Tom Moore. The last time we'd seen Michael Ball in the Top 40 was back in 1996 and he reached number 40 with that particular record.
Then came Tina Turner on Kygo's remake of "What's Love Got To Do With It?". We'd last seen Tina Turner in the Top 40 in 2004 and she retired in 2009. I think it's fair to say she didn't have an awful lot to do with this particular record.
In August we had Vera Lynn return to the Top 40 after a 63 year absence with "Land Of Hope & Glory". It was just 2 months after her death but it came as part of a campaign against the proms banning certain songs and this was it's first time in the Top 40.
Finally we had Craig David collaborate with KSI and Digital Farm Animals on "Really Love". Craig David only just qualifies as a 20th Century artist having made his debut 3 weeks before the end of the century.
A lot has been said about the rise and fall and rise again of Craig David in the past couple of years. He made a very successful comeback in 2016 and with his summer long TS5 parties at Ibiza Rocks now in it's third year it doesn't look like he's going away anytime soon.
He isn't the first music act to stage a successful comeback, but the main difference between Craig David and most other comebacks is that it's his new music making the headlines, not his old music.
If you watch Needle Time on Vintage TV regularly you'll get the idea of how many musicians careers go. The person being interviewed is often a musician from yesteryear who is still making new music. Typically they make it big for a period of time, then nobodies interested anymore, they get dropped from their label and they wonder what they're going to do next. A few years later they're back in demand but they no longer have the pressure to deliver new music as it's the old hits people want to hear. However they make new music anyway for their own amusement. Throughout the show clips of their hits or songs that inspired them are played, then often at the end a new song of theirs is played which more often than not is terrible.
Back to Craig David though, his story is a little bit different. He broke through as featured vocalist on "Re-Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo Selecta)" by Artful Dodger. At this point though many people thought he was Artful Dodger and were confused when he was nowhere to be seen on their next hit "Movin Too Fast". It was one of the tunes at the end off 1999 which lead to the explosion of UK Garage in the mainstream in 2000.
He scored a number one with his debut solo hit "Fill Me In" which was also a UK Garage number. Next up he was back with Artful Dodger as featured vocalist on "Woman Trouble" though it was predominantly fellow vocalist Robbie Craig singing on the track. Then he was back at number one with his second solo record "Seven Days". Although the single edit was R&B as opposed to UK Garage there was a UK Garage mix of it doing the rounds at the time.
He had two further hits from his debut album "Born to Do It" which was a number one album. By this point it was early 2001 and he pretty much disappeared in the UK for a while, but this was because he was now concentrating on the American market.
At the end of 2002 UK Garage had been and gone from the mainstream, but the new single from Craig David "What's Your Flava?" was R&B, as was pretty much everything he released for years to come. In my opinion all the hits from his second album were poor except for "Rise & Fall".
In 2005 he was back again with his third album which did go platinum and spawned two top five hits, "All the Way" and "Don't Love You No More (I'm Sorry)". I actually have no recollection of these songs existing and have had to YouTube them, they are pretty forgettable to be fair.
Then in 2007 he had the last hit I remember of his before the comeback, "Hot Stuff (Let's Dance)" which I absolutely hated and still do. Beyond this he only had one Top 40 hit prior to his comeback, the number 39 single "6 of 1 Thing".
What came after this was a Greatest Hits album with two new singles which weren't hits and a soul covers album which completely flopped.
My assessment of his career to date by this point was that he was great at UK Garage but pretty average at R&B bar one or two tunes. When I heard of his comeback in 2016 I wasn't particularly interested partly because of my general lack of interest in modern music and partly because this was a man who hadn't made a decent record since 2002.
However I thought I'd give comeback single "When the Bassline Drops" a listen a couple of months later to see what all the fuss was about. Straight away it became apparent why it was a success, he had gone back to making UK Garage, the type of music which made him big in the first place.
That's not to say going back to your original sound is key to a successful comeback. When Take That made a successful comeback the music they made sounded nothing like their music from the first time round for example. Most musicians do like to experiment, some do it successfully, some alienate their fans because it's too different or not to their liking. Craig David most likely fits in the latter category so going back to UK Garage is probably the best thing he could have done.
