Artist · chart history · #108 in indie & aaa artist polls
David Gray
Solo artist Sale United Kingdom British singer/songwriter
David Gray is an artist from Sale. David Gray has 132 chart appearances on 83 radio countdowns from 29 stations on RockLists, spanning 2000–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Babylon”, which appears on 43 lists with a best position of #3. The station that charted David Gray most often is WYEP (Pittsburgh, PA), with 34 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2010.
David Gray, born in Sale in 1968, spent the '90s as a singer-songwriter in search of an audience. He put out his debut album in 1993, played guitar and piano, sang in a voice that cracked with feeling, and kept at it. Then came White Ladder in 1998, and the long wait was over.
White Ladder is a quiet revolution: heartfelt songs, warm and melancholy, that sound as if they were sung to one person in a small room. "Babylon" was the song that broke it open, a skipping, hopeful ballad, and "Please Forgive Me" and "Sail Away" carried the same bittersweet glow. The album became the first of 3 UK number ones in 6 years, the fifth best-selling album in Britain in the 2000s and, by 2019, its 10th best-selling of the century so far. In America he was nominated for the Grammy for Best New Artist in 2002.
He kept making records in the same reflective vein: A New Day at Midnight in 2002 with "Be Mine" and "The Other Side", Life in Slow Motion with "The One I Love", Draw the Line with "Fugitive", and Mutineers in 2014 with "Back In The World". Along the way he picked up 4 Brit Award nominations, 2 of them for Best British Male.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by David Gray on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Babylon | 43 | #3 | – | 2001 | |
| 2 | Fugitive | 13 | #3 | – | 2009 | |
| 3 | A Moment Changes Everything | 9 | #15 | – | 2010 | |
| 4 | Back In The World | 8 | #17 | – | 2014 | |
| 5 | Please Forgive Me | 11 | #21 | – | 2001 | |
| 6 | Sail Away | 13 | #200 | – | – | |
| 7 | Stella the Artist | 6 | #39 | – | 2010 | |
| 8 | You're the World to Me | 6 | #72 | – | 2007 | |
| 9 | The Other Side | 3 | #62 | – | 2002 | |
| 10 | The One I Love | 4 | #340 | – | – | |
| 11 | This Years Love | 3 | #561 | – | – | |
| 12 | Plus & Minus | 3 | #77 | – | 2024 | |
| 13 | Only the Wine | 1 | #18 | – | 2011 | |
| 14 | Be Mine | 3 | #444 | – | – | |
| 15 | A Tight Ship | 1 | #47 | – | 2019 | |
| 16 | Late Night Radio | 1 | #635 | – | – | |
| 17 | Shine | 1 | #964 | – | – | |
| 18 | Caroline | 1 | #794 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
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