David Gray:
White Ladder
(1999)

Genre: .Indie singer-songwriter.
Produced By: Gray/McClune/Polson.
Record Label: Warner.

David Gray emerged more or less from nothing with this album. Even though he had released several albums before this, "White Ladder" was the breakthrough that established him outside the UK. It's the type of album you don't pay much attention to the first couple of times you listen to it. Then it starts to creep into your mind and you realise the brilliance of the combination of modern singer-songwriting and subtle use of drum programming. The album is filled with simple, honest and unpretentious pop songs where the very thing that makes them shine so bright is this exact very limited use of effects. It just shows that if you have the heart, the voice and the songs, you may actually not need that much more.

Overall Rating (on a scale from 1 to 10): 9

James Blunt.