David Gray (GB)

About

Also known as: David Grey

Few albums have had a trajectory quite like White Ladder. David Gray recorded it on a shoestring, self released it in 1998, and watched it slowly conquer the world, eventually hitting number one on the UK Albums Chart more than two years after it first came out and spending 151 weeks on the chart. It became the fifth best selling album of the 2000s in the UK and, by one 2012 report, the biggest selling album in Irish history. Songs like "Babylon", "This Year's Love", "Please Forgive Me" and "Sail Away" are still inescapable for good reason. Gray's sound shifted meaningfully with White Ladder, moving away from the acoustic folk and guitar driven alternative rock of his first three records toward a folktronic style that became his signature. He kept the momentum going with A New Day at Midnight, which debuted at number one in 2002, and Life in Slow Motion, which did the same in 2005 and was widely seen as a return to form. Across five successive albums he cracked the US Top 20, and he has picked up four Brit Award nominations along the way, including two for Best British Male.