AMERICAN CHARTWATCH.

Craig David this week becomes the first British artist to debut inside the Top 20 of the Billboard albums chart for more than four years. David's album Born To Do It sold nearly 79,000 copies last week to earn a number 11 debut. The last UK act to fare better on their US albums chart debut were the Spice Girls, whose Spice LP entered at number six in February 1997, with sales of 89,000, and went on to top the 7m mark. Simultaneous with the release of Born To Do It, David's debut US single Fill Me In has been deleted, and thus faces an uphill struggle to match the album's chart position on the Hot 100 singles chart. It holds at number 18 on the chart, which combines sales and airplay, this week. On the sales chart it slips to five, with a further 30,000 sales taking it past the 250,000 mark, but it suffers a `negative bullet' on the airplay chart, where it slips 47-48 despite increasing support substantially.

David is one of three British artists to make their first album chart appearance this week, the highest intake of new UK talent for five years coinciding with veteran DJ Paul Gambaccini's outburst in The Independent, where he was quoted dismissing UK repertoire as "pathetic". Also breaking their duck are The Wiseguys and The Beta Band (pictured). As reported last week, ...