Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 22/08/05
Label: Warner Bros

Comedian Leigh Francis, creator of Avid Merrion and "Bo Selecta", is a mercilessly savage and insightful impressionist. And of all the pop stars he's mocked, none has been better lampooned than Craig David. On a recent episode of Channel 4's, "A Bear's Tail", he had the ever hapless Craig 'Can I Get A Rewind' David reduced to selling his own brand of designer colostomy bags and cheap, imitation diamond jewellery on a TV shopping channel. While extreme, Francis's point is true enough: he's the world's least sexual, least believable R&B star.

Francis will no doubt be thrilled to hear that, while catchy enough to put David back in the public-eye, his third album does nothing to dint his cosy mummy's boy image. If anything, "The Story Goes" is the logical progression from 2002's slickly inoffensive "Slicker Than Your Average". Where that album took his initial charm - the smart, warp-speed rhymes and honey-dipped crooning - and set them to saccharine, Michael Jackson-lite pop, "The Story Goes…" continues the wearing away of rough edges and personality, until all that's left is mild mannered, could-be-anyone, generic R&B mush.

Under a thin veneer of satin smooth production, "Don't Love You No More (I'm Sorry)" is a stock-issue break-up song; limp, lifeless and missable. As are interchangeable mid-tempo break-up/loved-up sways, "Separate Ways" and "Unbelievable", while "One Last Dance" is mediocre heartbreak delivered without passion or emotion, or come to that, a tune. All of which points to poor old Craig having spent too much time in America listening to middle of the road drivel, when he should have been zeroing in on the good stuff.

Even the key staples, the cool club track ("All The Way"), the sweaty club track ("Just Chillin'"), the two-timing girlfriend track ("Thief In The Night") and the get-your-kit-off track ("Take 'Em Off"), easily the album's stand-out songs, are decidedly by the numbers.

As is so often the way in R&B, Craig David is crippled by being British. Yet, while for most UK talents it's a lack of money, for David it's the Great British reserve which is his problem. He suffers from being too nice and polite, and with every album, he's getting nicer. To the point where the imaginative Craig David of "Rewind", "Fill Me In" and "Seven Days", has all but disappeared, playing it so safe that instead of being the Robbie Williams of UK R&B, he's turned out to be the Ronan Keating.

Craig David desperately needs to get some attitude and start taking risks, and for "The Story Goes" he desperately needed some unshakable future classics to stamp his personality on. Without them, he's just handed Leigh Francis another two years worth of material.

    by Dan Gennoe