White Ladder

Gray, Craig McClune and Iestyn Polson made the record in the singer's bedroom in Stoke Newington. Polson said they worked within what they had, chopping up beats and making samples, and that he had McClune play drums in the bathroom. Polson turned up at 10am and called the schedule strict. Road works outside meant traffic leaked into the recording, and on Babylon a car passes right by the house; when Polson edited it out the song sounded worse, so it stayed in. Gray called it proof that you do not need much to make something that lasts.

It came out in Ireland first, on Gray's own IHT label, with 5,000 pressed copies funded by donations from his old boss Dave Boyd at Hut Records and a friend. East West later licensed it in Britain, and Dave Matthews' ATO Records released it in the United States in 2000 as the label's first release. A hidden track, Through to Myself, sits in the pregap before Please Forgive Me on the original 1999 British release. The United States edition leaves it out and adds Babylon II, and the Japanese release adds Over My Head. The closing Say Hello, Wave Goodbye is a cover of the Soft Cell song, with added lines from two Van Morrison songs.

In Ireland it reached number one in January 2000, stayed there for six weeks and was said to be in one in four households. In Britain it debuted at 69 after the ATO re-release and reached number one on 5 August 2001. It sold 2.94 million copies there by July 2011, passed three million by March 2015, and has sold over seven million worldwide. In the United States it peaked at 35. Singles were This Year's Love, Babylon, Please Forgive Me, Sail Away and Say Hello, Wave Goodbye.

Reviewing the 20th anniversary edition in 2020, Ian Cohen of Pitchfork called it "a modest collection of love songs recorded in his bedroom by an Everyman who was suddenly Everywhere". He noted that half its ten songs were released as singles. Lost Songs 95-98, recorded over ten days in October 1999, followed it in 2000 and 2001.