It's All About The Stragglers - Artful Dodger

Unlike the many so called credible music magazine's out there, we don't have the daggers out for UK Garage just yet. We understand that UK Garage is more than just a passing trend and looks set to be the force that its sister genre R&B has been over the past few years. The main problem that most publications have with UK Garage is that it isn't made by 4 skinny middle class white boys and as such they just can't understand it. Problemo solved, as Artful Dodger happen to fit the NME friendly vision of music. Sadly that couldn't be further than the truth if you tried. With the exception of "Movin Too Fast" much of this record is ...  Read the complete review

"It's All About The Stragglers" came out in 2000, at the height of popularity for UK Garage. This urban dance music emmerged in the mid-nineties, and faded around 2002 (before being brought back as Bassline in 2007). Artful Dodgers were amongst the most popular acts, and as a production group, out of Southampton, they collaborated with R&B singers to perform on top of their 2-Step beats. With the dance scene anywhere being ever-changing, constructing an album is difficult, as the music is quickly old, but with this album constructed efficiently, they managed to stay relavent at this peak period with tunes such as "TwentyFourSeven", "Woman ...  Read the complete review

The Artful Dodger album is great. It has a wide selection of different people singing to accompany their backing sounds. These people include Craig David, Michelle Escoffery, Robbie Craig, MC Alistair, and Romina Johnson. These are just a few of the people who are the CD. The CD overall is very good, offering a selection of R’N’B, Dance and mild pop. It is a CD for a mixed variety of people. I bought this CD quite a while ago, back in 2000, but it has never stopped playing on my CD player. I love this CD because it has a great selection of types of music. I’m the type of person who can listen to almost any type of music. This CD is perfect for ...  Read the complete review

Wow, well what can I say? Artful Dodger are one of the best things to come out of the UK dance scene for ages, ok ok they are garage, but since I do not know much about garage, I think that they are more of a dance group. They arrived on the scene Dec 1999 with Craig David and "re-wind" which was an instant hit, and since then, they spent nearly a year releasing hits until finally on Nov 20th they released It's all about the stragglers. If you like the singles released so far - re-wind - movin' too fast - woman trouble - please don't turn me on AND what I consider to be the best track, the new single - ...  Read the complete review

I remember when I used to be heavily into garage music and this lot were just breaking through onto the UK music scene. They had a string of top ten hits, helped by the presence of some strong guest vocalists. Who are they: Artful Dodger are Mark Hill and Peter Devereux, specialising in garage music with a commercial appeal. On this album: 'Re-Rewind' spurned the 'bo selecta' catchphrase which most of us are familar with. It is a pleasing garage track with smooth sexy vocals from Craig David. The song is well produced with little pauses in it for the listener or crowd to react by shouting back the lyrics. 'Please Don't Turn Me ...  Read the complete review