''The Time Is Now'' is the seventh studio album by British singer

Craig David Craig Ashley David (born 5 May 1981) is a British singer and songwriter who rose to fame in 1999, featuring on the single " Re-Rewind" by Artful Dodger. David's debut studio album, ''Born to Do It'', was released in 2000, after which he has re ...

, released on 26 January 2018. The album features guest appearances from

JP Cooper John Paul Cooper (born 1 November 1983) is an English singer and songwriter. He is best known for featuring on the Jonas Blue single " Perfect Strangers". The song was certified platinum in the UK. His follow-up solo single was " September Song" ...

Bastille The Bastille (, ) was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was stor ...

AJ Tracey Ché Wolton Grant (born 4 March 1994), known professionally as AJ Tracey, is a British rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is from Ladbroke Grove, West London. Tracey rose to popularity in 2016 and was listed by ''The Guardian'' i ...

Ella Mai Ella Mai Howell (born 3 November 1994) is an English singer-songwriter. Her musical career began at London's British and Irish Modern Music Institute in 2014, during which time she auditioned as part of a trio on the 11th season of ''The X Fa ...

Kaytranada Louis Kevin Celestin (born August 25, 1992), known professionally as Kaytranada (stylized as KAYTRANADA, shortened as KAYTRA), is a Haitian-Canadian record producer and DJ. Celestin rose to prominence after releasing a series of mixtapes, remixes, ...

and

GoldLink D'Anthony William Carlos (born May 17, 1993), better known by his stage name GoldLink, is an American rapper and singer. In 2014, he released his debut mixtape, ''The God Complex'', which received critical acclaim. In June 2015, GoldLink was cho ...

. The first single from the album, titled " Heartline", was released on 14 September 2017, through David's official YouTube account. The album reached number two in the United Kingdom, making it David's fifth UK top 10 album.

Background

On 15 September 2017, less than a year after the release of his comeback album ''

Following My Intuition ''Following My Intuition'' is the sixth studio album by English singer Craig David. The album was released on 30 September 2016 by Insanity Records and Sony Music and features the likes of Big Narstie, Blonde, Sigala, Hardwell and Kaytranada. It ...

'' which became his first chart-topper for 16 years, David announced the follow-up, ''The Time Is Now''. In an interview, David said: "The motivation and inspiration behind this album was all down to the huge realisation that even when I wasn't as focused, there were amazing lessons to be learnt." The album features collaborations with

and

Singles

The first single from the album, " Heartline", was released on 14 September 2017, and peaked at 24 in the UK. The second single, " I Know You", featuring the British band

, was released on 23 November 2017, and was commercially more successful than his recent singles, peaking at five in the UK.

Critical reception

''The Time Is Now'' received mixed reviews from music critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 56 based on 12 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Commercial performance

''The Time Is Now'' reached number two on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

, debuting with sales of 16,874 copies, behind the

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack ...

of ''

The Greatest Showman ''The Greatest Showman'' is a 2017 American biographical musical drama film directed by Michael Gracey in his directorial debut, written by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon and starring Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, ...

''.

Tour

David embarked on a tour and made appearances at music festivals around England, the United States, the Middle East and Europe to promote the album.

Track listing

Notes * signifies a vocal producer.

Personnel

Credits adapted from album’s liner notes. *Mark Asari – backing vocals (tracks 9, 14), chant vocals (track 1) *

Jonas Blue Guy James Robin (born 2 August 1989), known professionally as Jonas Blue, is an English DJ, record producer, songwriter, and remixer based in London. He is known for recruiting young artists for his dance-pop and tropical house productions, wh ...

– producer and mixing (track 2) *Raoul Chen – producer, engineer, mixing, backing vocals, drum programming, and instruments (track 6) *Wez Clarke – mixing (tracks 1, 3, 7, 14, 15) *

– vocals (track 7) *

– vocals (all tracks) *

Ed Drewett Edward James Drewett (born 1 April 1988) is a British singer and songwriter who is best known for his contributions and collaborations with acts such as One Direction, Little Mix, Jonas Blue, The Wanted, Olly Murs and SG Lewis. Early life Dr ...

– chant vocals (track 1) * Phebe Edwards – backing vocals (tracks 4, 5, 12) *Lauren Faith – backing vocals (track 4) *Rachel Furner – backing vocals (track 12) *GoldLink – vocals (track 9) *Manon Grandjean – engineer (tracks 4, 5, 8, 10, 12) *Stuart Hawkes – mastering (all tracks) *

Tre Jean-Marie Tre Jean-Marie (born 13 April 1993) is a British songwriter and record producer. His writing and production credits include AJ Tracey, Anne-Marie, Burna Boy, Craig David, Jacob Banks, Joy Crookes, Kaytranada, Labrinth, Little Mix, Mabel, N ...

– producer (tracks 1, 7, 14, 15); vocal production, vocal mixing, and background vocals (track 9); chant vocals (track 1) *

– producer and mixing (track 9) * William Kennard – producer, mixing, instrumentation, and programming (track 13) *Chris Laws – engineer, drums, and percussion (track 3) *Tim Laws – guitar (track 3) *

Colin Lester Colin Lester (born 26 May 1960 in London) is a British artist manager of R&B, pop and rock music acts. Colin Lester has managed the careers for numerous British and international artists. He was awarded 'The Peter Grant Award' for outstandi ...

– executive producer *Andy Mac – talkbox (track 14) * Steve Mac – producer and keyboards (track 3) *Rob MacFarlane – engineer (tracks 8, 13) *

– vocals (track 15) *

Jacob Manson Jacob Manson is a British DOB is March,91 multi platinum-selling music producer, DJ and songwriter best known as a member of house production duo Blonde with Adam Englefield. Manson signed a publishing deal with Sony ATV in 2013. Blonde was the ...

– producer, engineer, mixing, guitar, keyboards, and drum programming (track 11) *Brandon Michael – chant vocals (track 1) * Saul Milton – producer, mixing, instrumentation, and programming (track 13) *Nosaappollo – producer (track 15) *Tyrell "169" Paul – producer (tracks 4, 10, 12), drum programming (tracks 4, 10) *Dann Pursey – engineer (track 3) *

Carmen Reece Helen Culver, known by her stage name Carmen Reece, is an English singer, songwriter, musician and producer based in Los Angeles, California. An accomplished pianist and flautist from childhood, Carmen penned her first song aged 11 and has sinc ...

– backing vocals (track 8) *Sillkey – additional production (track 14) * Dan Smith – vocals (track 8) *

Fraser T Smith Fraser Thorneycroft-Smith (born 8 February 1971), known professionally as Fraser T. Smith, is an English record producer, songwriter and musician. Some of the singles he collaborated on include Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain", James Morrison's " ...

– producer, mixing, keyboards, and drum programming (tracks 4, 5, 8, 10, 12); guitar (tracks 4, 10) *

– vocals (track 11)

Charts

Release history

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Time Is Now (album), The 2018 albums Craig David albums Albums produced by Kaytranada RCA Records albums Albums produced by Tre Jean-Marie