Born To Do It

Yes, hello. We'll have a number two single to start, and then a follow-up that drops bang into number one, please, thank you. Nothing to drink for me, thanks.

Welcome to the world of Craig David: eighteen years old, teetotaller, possessor of a well-scrubbed and approachable playa-next-door handsomeness - and probably the most well-behaved, and instantaneous, r'n'b star Britain has ever produced.

Immediately credible after last autumn's garagey Artful Dodger collaboration 'Rewind' and already the object of much misty-eyed and rapturous female speculation thanks to Number One smash 'Fill Me In' and the current '7 Days' there's been no time for messing about. And who said teenagers aren't industrious?

Downtempo, smooth and honeyed, Born To Do It is populated by 'pretty young girls' who are wooed through only the most gentle and oblique of approaches - and who are inevitably more up for it than our hero himself. Current single '7 Days' features a girl who prefers to skip the dinner-and-a-movie routine in favour of Getting Down To It ASAP (by Wednesday, since you ask); and 'Booty Man' finds a lover complaining, "I can't believe you want to talk/Instead of making love to me."

Even during 'Follow Me' the somewhat inevitable track about a steamily-depicted sexual encounter (this is an r'n'b album, after all), instead of trying on the usual booty-minded braggadocio, David asks: "How do you feel?" and talks of love: "Are you falling?" A planet full of young girls - not to mention Mothers Against Negative r'n'b Role Models - swoon audibly as one.

But this is probably the coffee-table end of r'n'b: it's skilful and well-arranged, recalling the light touch of early-Nineties Quincy Jones and integrating all the familiar, modern r'n'b production flourishes (softly cascading chimes, subtle, complex rhythms, etc) - but the whole thing is too polite by half. Singles apart, the tracks merge into a continuous sheen of warm, tactile but unmemorable perfection - and 'Once In A Lifetime' and 'Time to Party' in fact, are dangerously close relations of The Lighthouse Family.

The overall impression is of a night of soft-focus, scented-candle-and-aromatherapy-oil lovemaking with a Sensitive Man - leaving you largely unmoved, and in acute need of a dose of good old-fashioned teenage sass.

What's Samantha Mumba doing for dinner?