I remember "Torn" - that was where it all started. It came out at more or less the same time that I began taking serious notice of pop music (in the broad sense) generally, as opposed to just having the radio on all the time, which was also the time at which I began to become aware of music videos, and I remember waking up early on Saturday mornings in order to catch it on rage - it was a huge hit, and so there were a few weeks there where it would reliably be on at the time when the program got up to counting down the ARIA top 10 (am I just imagining-misremembering this, or was it held off number 1 by Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On"?). Part of the appeal unquestionably resided in the video clip, an elegantly sparse thing depicting the gamine Natalie in a state of arty despair, but mostly it was an infatuation with the song itself. I can't even begin to imagine why it gave me such a rush - these things are always a bit ineffable - except by surmising that it was (and remains) just one of those perfect pop songs, delivered (and produced) just right, breezy and sweet and sad.
I must've bought Left of the Middle fairly shortly after, even though at the time each cd purchase was still a major decision, and I imagine I must've spun it plenty, though memory, ever unreliable, fails to supply on this point. Circumstantial evidence provided by this rather embarrassing 'single review' from a magazine that Tim Watson and I put together for a school project in high school:
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Smoke - Natalie Imbruglia
Smoke is the standout track from a fine debut album, and if Natalie had as much sense as she has looks and talent, she would have released it immediately after smash hit Torn. As it is, Smoke is the fourth single from the album, and most likely won't do as well as it deserves. Anyway, the track itself is a heart-felt ballad with slightly better lyrics than a typical such song.
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Ah, the callowness of youth!
Anyway, I'm pretty sure that it was one of the first cds that I ever bought (other early ones that I can recall were the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack, Garbage, Tragic Kingdom, (What's The Story) Morning Glory, Ten...). And it was a nice enough album, and still is, with decent songs and state of the moment production, and I've never for a second regretted its purchase. But things were moving quickly for me at that time, and it wasn't long before I got into Radiohead, and from thereon in everything else was kind of inevitable, and Left of the Middle and Natalie naturally enough slid by the wayside.
Fast forward about four years and comes the release of White Lilies Island. By now, I'm second year university, and it was probably all about the Smiths and the Cure (not to mention Radiohead!) at this stage, but still I download the album just in case (back in the days when audiogalaxy was a thing of wonder and before we knew - or at least before we were particularly aware - that downloading music was illegal), and it strikes me as faintly pleasant, just enough so to linger on my hard drive indefinitely, which it does. Now fast forward about another four years, and we reach today, with my just having finally bought the album and found myself liking it heaps. I don't usually mention it here when I buy albums which I've already listened to properly, but since I don't think I've really written about Natalie before (and certainly not on extemporanea), well, why not?
You know, I don't understand why White Lilies Island wasn't a huge hit. Often when people say that kind of thing, they mean it rhetorically; often when I say that kind of thing, I mean it rhetorically. But in this instance, I really don't understand it - it just seems so good. Not great by any stretch of the imagination, sure - but the kind of good that I would've thought would be eminently palatable to the masses, especially given that Left of the Middle had been such a massive seller.
Perhaps I'm just giving the masses - and the record label execs and radio djs who basically determine the tastes of aforementioned masses - too much credit for good taste, though. And/or perhaps White Lilies Island is rather more 'indie'-sounding than I'm registering, not being particularly conversant with top 40 of the last (relevantly) four years or so. But damnit, this album is just so pretty and jangly and mildly epic in all the right sorts of ways - like the Sundays, but glossier - one great tune after another, no rough edges to speak of...what more did people want from their mainstream pop? I can imagine "That Day" throwing people off - it's a good song, but its choruslessness may've made it a bit difficult to digest out there in radioland, and admittedly not that many of the songs on the album really seem made for chart domination, for all of their immediacy. So maybe the natural audience for this album would've been more the 'adult album alternative' crowd, which would've completely overlooked it because of Natalie's putative pop star status, meaning that it fell through the cracks. But still, it's a crying shame that more people haven't taken White Lilies Island to heart, because it deserves a larger audience.
Well, in any case, there you have it...
