Arena

March edition

They were relatively straightforward, slightly earnest (less so in Spiteri’s case), self-conscious (more so in Imbruglia’s case), obviously crafted singer-songwriter songs. And for all the praise strewn over Ashcroft and Yorke, for all the pomp and circumstance and talk of entry into the classic rock canon, it was "Say What You Want" and "Torn" that people were humming on the way to work.

Indeed everything was going more than tickety-boo for Imbruglia until a Scandinavian time bomb/damp squib (time will tell) troubled her trajectory. In a very quiet news week in mid-January this year – when two porcine renegades were making the front pages of tabloids and broadsheets alike – young Natalie’s status as some kind of authentic female voice among the polystyrene Pams and songs with Muppet hooks took a body blow.

It emerged that "Torn" had been recorded two years previously by a Norwegian popette called Trine Rein who had taken the song to number one in her homeland. It seems a Danish version of the song, written by Phil Thornally, may also have been recorded five years ago by one Lis Sorenson.

Though Imbruglia never claimed to have written the song (which was properly credited to Thornally), the revelation did jar with her efforts, and those of her record company RCA, to establish her as a fresh but serious songsmith. The Sun’s Andy Coulson jumped on the rediscovered Norwegian "Torn" with his full weight and the paper even set up a 0891 number so readers could listen to the "original". On the day of the revelation he reported RCA claiming they had no knowledge of "Torn’s" past lives. This may be so, but Imbruglia’s cover, it has to said, is beyond faithful.

That day Chris Evans, once a committed Imbruglia champion, called the Sun’s 0891 number and played Trine’s "Torn" live on his Virgin Radio breakfast show. Natalie’s version "shouldn’t be called ‘Torn’ it should be called ‘Ripped Off’," the wag quipped.

By the second day of Torngate, things were getting messy. EMI announced that they were going to release Trine’s "Torn" in this country while RCA insisted that Evans was only getting arsy because Natalie had refused to sweeten his nights.

Whether this strange episode is really going to piss on Natalie’s bonfire or merely fan the flames of her refried fame has yet to be seen. What is interesting is that the tabloids found this Trine-tangle worthy of so much space. Clearly Imbruglia is considered a major star in the making. More importantly, the tabloids have bought into Imbruglia’s image of authenticity. If she were a quick-fizzle pop-tart, an inferior (and it is) two-year-old version of her single would be of less interest, than, well, escaped pigs.

Whatever, the success of her next single "Big Mistake", out this month with an Imbruglia writing credit and no unseemly history, will prove whether she can be part of the grand Joni Mitchell tradition. What is also kind of strange is that she should want to.

You might have thought that after Alanis Morisette and Joan Osborne and Fiona Apple and (gulp) Meredith Brooks the attraction of wailing troubled beauty would have worn ultra-slim. It seems not, Texas’ White On Blonde has hung in the top ten of the album charts forever and a day and produced a quiver of quivering soul-tipped arrows. Imbruglia’s "Torn" was in the top ten for over two months after its release in late October, and her album Left Of The Middle also thrust itself into the top ten. And with three or four other singles yet to be dangled before the punters, it’s set to bobble up and down in the single digits for a long time to come.

Because these two albums neatly bookended last year, it is easy, if not wise, to draw comparisons. In truth, though, they are very different propositions. White On Blonde is an assured assembly of relatively upbeat polished pop, with mighty hooks and winning lines; left Of The Middle fishes the stormier waters of post-Alanis angst.

Imbruglia insists she can do no other: "That’s just me," she chirps over couscous and green tea in a London restaurant. "I was saying to someone I work with, I must write a happy song. I really don’t want to make one of those albums,’ but that’s just the way that I write. I’d like to be able to write a really happy poppy song and I really respect people who can do that. And of course I’m aware that it’s such a cliché, the angsty-girlie thing. But you have to go with the flow when you’re songwriting and that is what came out.

"A lot of the album is about where I was mentally. And as much as you try and invent characters and other situations, subconsciously their is shit going on. You can’t really escape that."

The 22 and tiny Aussie, with the perfect skin and puppy-dog peepers, is an odd candidate for tortured soulstress. And, face to face, there is no evidence of someone seared and damaged. But Imbruglia has been places. At least in her head.

"I remember when I wrote ‘Big Mistake’ (one of the more shockingly bare intimacies on Left Of The Middle) I was really happy. I was in LA, and I’d just got my deal and I was really content in my relationship (now over and no, I could secure no names). I was on a real high. And then I write this song. Maybe it is getting rid of stuff, which I know is a bit of a cliché, that venting thing. But maybe that is what is going on. I don’t know where that kind of anger comes from. And if I could put myself in a headspace to write a happy song then I would. But I can’t"

Natalie Imbruglia lived a sun-blessed childhood on Australia’s Central Coast. Still, she managed to mine a little misery. "I came from a family that was the real Brady Bunch. I had two parents who loved each other and loads of sisters (three to be exact). But you can always find your own turmoil, a way to isolate yourself. Maybe I am just a bit of a drama queen. But I always found a way to bring some angst into it. I felt different and isolated, just in the sense that I was so ambitious, much more than anyone else in the family. And then I became part of an industry where I just couldn’t go to my parents, the just didn’t understand. So in that sense I am kind of distant but I am also very close to them."

And Imbruglia admits that she never needed her family so much as during her long lost weekend after her arrival in the country, a refuge from Erinsborough High.

At 14 Imbruglia caught the train to Sydney to find an acting agent. Her mother had decided that her six evenings of dance classes a week were quite enough theatrical labour for a young lass. But Imbruglia got an agent’s number from a friend and went away. Within six months of leaving school at 16 she had four commercials under her belt and a part in Neighbours. For the next couple of years she was Beth, the latest Melbourne burb-babe on the block. Inevitably moving on meant joining the Erinsborough exodus to the old country, where interest in the show was still near fanatical and the streets were paved with panto offers and opportunities to party in ways that just don’t happen in Melbourne.

If she was running away from Neighbours she came to the wrong place. Our Erinsborough was an Erinsborough of the past where Beth still existed. At least for six more months. It meant she was in demand. If she was moving on she wasn’t moving very far.

"I was really maniacally busy from the age of 17 and suddenly Neighbours was over and I didn’t know what to do. So I did nothing. I just went out and had a good time. It was a good solid year of doing nothing and it was worth two."

Imbruglia is coy about the names, places, habits and hook-ups of this year. But whatever the details, eventually the thrill of her London adventures began to fade. She had to face up to where she was really at. And that wasn’t very nice.

An unfortunate period of full-time work meant that I completely missed Imbruglia’s tenure as tea-time queen. The first I knew of her was a couple of dodgy wank shots and an interview in a middle-shelf men’s mag. These were taken, I guess, during her first year of heady hedonism. She seemed a lost young thing, if spectacular in knickers and cigarette smoke. And then she was gone.

And then she was back. I am puffing away on the step machine at my municipal fitness facility and her long, awkward name flickers across the MTV screen. There are some strong opening chords and a quality voice and a very short girl in combats with a blank, renaissance kind of face. That’s weird, I thought, as I reached the 125^th virtual floor.

In her darkest hours, with the parties over, Imbruglia had started writing songs. It was always something she had wanted to do, but there were people trying to stop her, holding her back; Natalie Imbruglia and Beth and every other novelty Antipodean trying to clear the soap suds.

"There was thing whole thing of ‘I can’t do that’ even though I really wanted to. It had already been done and I had to deal with that. While I was on Neighbours the idea of one of us making a record had become a bit of a joke. But I just kept telling myself I’m doing this because I want to do this before I die. And I might not get another chance. I sat down and I didn‘t really know what to do. I felt like a twat."

A year and a half ago she took her songs to RCA. They liked what she had. More importantly they understood that Imbruglia’s past did not mean that she had to be marketed as short-life dance fluff. There were other areas to explore, other territories to take. They hooked her up with a of writing and producing partners who could help her develop into something with more long-terms adult appeal.

Certainly RCA’s efforts are centred on promoting Imbruglia as an album artist, a Mojo-friendly, rock-reverent neo-classicist; a songsmith with something to say.

In turn Imbruglia insists that this was a case of RCA recognising they had that sort of proposition on their hands. If still in shaky, self-conscious form, rather than taking a naïve beauty and adding depth as required. She certainly makes clear that the angst was not engineered as an angle.

"When I am trying to be intelligent or trying to make a statement, I can’t do it. I fuck up. I never go, ‘Oh, now I’ll write a song about this issue or that,’ because I can’t work like that. I’m just not an opinionated person in that way. What comes out, comes out.

"I really don’t think that you can think about it too much, that’s where the problems come for me anyway. And when it comes to making the next album I really want to keep that naivety because it really did me justice."

It is also impossible to believe that Imbruglia’s terrible ache for credibility is anything but genuine. "That was more important to me than anything, more important than chart positions or sales. Is it going to be a joke or not? – that’s all I really cared about. And it didn’t matter what people were saying to me while I was making it. Now the reviews are out and they are good and people are treating it with a deal of respect, at last I can kind of chill out and enjoy it."

What she enjoys less (or so she says, and I’m inclined to take her at her word) is the sudden nation’s sweetheart status. And the attendant interest in her duvet action, or lack of it. "That is something that I really struggle with," she admits.

At the moment Imbruglia is flying solo – too busy, too happy – but she admits she has not always been comfortable in the past with navigating life’s highways and byways without a romantic partner. David Schwimmer – Friend’s beagle-eyed Ross – has been one such co-pilot and is on the thank you list on the album’s credits. It is also rumoured that Nigel Godrich, who mixed much of Left of The Middle – as well as producing Radiohead’s all conquering OK Computer – has come very close to the little gem he polished. Imbruglia will not elaborate. And let’s be fair, why should she?

What she will say is that the bitter, bitter symphony of Left of The Middle does not suggest a terminal disenchantment with the male of the species. "I’m not anti-men, no any more than any other girl anyway. I’ve been through all kinds of experiences and I’ve been hurt. But I don’t have some hang-up on men, I love men.

"The thing is I don’t feel that I need to be with somebody at the moment and that’s a nice change. I’ve been single for a few months and that’s the first time in ages. I’m surprised at how comfortable I am with it."

More generally, has the commercial and critical success of the album brought Imbruglia to a happier place, a place where she is surer of her footing? Does she know what she does and know she does it well? "Oh no, I’m not sure I’ll ever have that feeling. I just hope I stay feeling like this for a while."

It’s funny that Natalie should sound so high and clear this year. But then maybe not. In some ways she exposes a strange blind spot on the part of rock’s critical establishment. Ashcroft and Yorke can choke themselves on self-pity and the pundits queue to genuflect before them. Once a woman singer tries a little bit of anguished introspection, they prepare to slice and dice. To be sure, Left of The Middle is no OK Computer or Urban Hymns but it is very popular and the critics have been kind.

It still seems thought hat the rock intelligentsia can’t get its head round the appeal of Alanis and the others. Maybe it’s the obsession with the Wilson-Dylan-Lennon-gaye-Young-Bowie-Lydon line of rock’s holy men that blurs the vision. Whatever, it seems the massive success of Morissette was not a freak event. Of course Imbruglia is perfectly pretty and perfectly packaged but the product is still angsty girlie. And we can’t get enough of it.

There we were, sparpening our critical knives in preperation for more Aussie soap kitten tat, when up pops the adorable Ms Imbruglia with a painfully cute net image and a cracking single, Torn. And not only that, the album's pretty bloody good, too. OK, so it owes a bit of a debt to Alanis Morisette, but who's complaining? Come in Kylie and Dannii, your time is up.