Every week, a different FADER editor compiles a playlist to highlight a new release and give you a guide to that artist’s web of influences and peers. These Staff Selects live in our Spotify app, alongside GEN Fs from our archives and playlists for each issue. Today, it’s Naomi Zeichner on Craig David.
Young UK duo Disclosure’s new single, "Latch," their first for PMR, coasts along on bubble pops until a minute in, when vocalist Sam Smith's breaks out of his velvet purr to joyously squeal, Now I've got you in my space! The song feels like an instant hit, something that should be playing on the radio all over the world. But it's hard to imagine Disclosure as stars on American TV; they're just too house for red state moms, the beat on "Latch" a little too 2-step. When I try to recall UK dance that managed to make a successful break for US charts, I think about Craig David, who it seems like other people are thinking about too. He keeps popping up weirdly: Das Racist's Himanshu Suri wished to see David play in Brooklyn, Grantland's Rembert Browne boldly claimed,"There's no Drake without Craig David" and Arca remixed "Fill Me In." Here, I've compiled songs that sound like David's "Rewind" and paired those with some other underground-inspired, pop-leaning stuff from new British acts like AlunaGeorge and Bondax. It's not that Jessie Ware sounds exactly like Craig David, but I suspect she had a copy of Born to Do It stuffed in her teenage CD case. To learn more about the couple years that American R&B and UK garage flirted closest with each other, check out Simon Reynold's awesome playlist of deep YouTube cuts over at RBMA.
