It is, as the late Lena Zavaroni once pointed out, all about personality. If you've got it, the world of pop is yours for the taking: you're Robbie Williams, counting the millions from your latest record-breaking deal. If personality ain't your thing, it's universal derision time: you're poor old Gary Barlow, stuck at home, watching your mouthy nemesis rake it in.
So there is something curious about the continuing success of Craig David. His automaton-like interviews suggest that no pop star is more openly devoid of character. They also reveal that the 21-year-old has a disturbing habit of referring to himself as "Craig David, the product". Perhaps he has good reason: one interviewer claimed that David isn't allowed to remove his hat without his management's say-so. David even asked a journalist's permission to put his feet up on his own dressing-room sofa. "It doesn't offend you?" he enquired, as if he had just suggested he strip naked and do the interview while leafing through a selection of pornographic magazines. He is groomed to the point of seeming slightly demented, spending 40 minutes a day sculpting his goatee. The result swoops across his face, looking - appropriately enough - like a hairy McDonald's arch.
Despite all this, David has never suffered the brickbats doled out to characterless manufactured stars. Quite the opposite. David is taken extremely seriously. When he was denied a Brit award, his cause was taken up not by screaming fans but by Elton John and Bono. Next week, he is the subject of a South Bank Show documentary, in a series also featuring director Mike Leigh and the composer Edward Elgar. David is handsome and possessed of a nice voice. His singles have skillfully mixed pop R&B with gentle hints of UK garage rhythms. This is hardly enough to warrant heavyweight documentaries and plaudits from the world's biggest rock stars.
His appeal may lie in the disparity between the image projected in his interviews and the image perpetuated in his records. In song, David is the apotheosis of the suburban lothario. His first solo hit, Fill Me In, had him creeping past the parents of his latest willing conquest. Its follow-up, Seven Days, detailed his lightning seduction technique: drinks on Tuesday, clothes off the next night. Other tracks from his debut album depicted him as priapic superhero Bootyman and posed the question, "Who be your Casanova?" The inevitable answer: "Craig David."
While other male R&B stars live out their records' sexual fantasies and become immersed in scandal as a result, David is all mouth and no trousers to a comical degree. He loves his "nanna" and disapproves of one-night stands as "crass". With that knowledge, his records seem knowing and clever, laden with sexual innuendo but utterly harmless in a very British way: Carry On Freakin' U. His debut album was called Born To Do It. On the Artful Dodger's garage smash Re-rewind he sang the line "Craig David all over your boink", less a sweaty come-on than a music-hall comic's smutty catchphrase.
Born To Do It sold 1.5m copies in the US. Its follow-up aims to capitalise on that success. At its worst, Slicker Than Your Average seems to be trying to bore the Yanks into submission. Personal and What's Changed smooth out David's idiosyncrasies in favour of formulaic R&B balladry. Much better are the tracks where the Southampton loverman re-emerges, making preposterous claims about his prowess to thumping, thrilling beats. The single, What's Your Flava, is fantastic. Over a clanking 1980s groove, David compares ladies to ice cream: "I wonder if I could peel your wrapper?" You can almost hear Barbara Windsor shrieking "Ooh, saucy!" in retort. Fast Cars is equally splendid: "Fast cars, fast women, speed bikes with nitro in 'em... those are the types that I be feelin'," brags David, who actually drives an economical Peugeot 206.
Sting makes an appearance on Rise and Fall. The cynical listener might think the song's lyric, about a superannuated, jaded rocker, is a gag at the guest star's expense: "You don't realise what this means to me, so let me have just one more chance, I'm not the man I used to be." However, the credits reveal it was written by David himself, surely not a man at home with biting satire. The unintentional hilarity continues on the rather disingenuous title track, which finds the universally lauded David bitterly bemoaning "haters". He raps using the edge-of-lunacy voice Eminem adopts when announcing he is going to stab his bitch-ass momma then slit his own throat in a self-loathing rage. David, however, adopts this tone to admonish "little kids" who have damaged the bumpers on his trusty Peugeot.
This is one of the few instances when you feel as though you're laughing at David; more often, you suspect you're laughing with him. His second album has its flaws, but they are largely generic: when it tries to fit too snugly into the R&B template, it tails off. At its best, however, it is a curiously unique record. David may be devoid of character but, whether by accident or by design, he makes records that have a character all their own.
