Natalie’s always excelled at a certain brand of polished acoustic pop music, but she’s never managed to achieve quite the same heights of success as another Antipodean ex-soap actress I could mention.

Glorious follows in that tradition, with a major marketing push to remind us that 2007 marks Natalie’s 10th year as a minor league pop star. I read this quotable quote from Imbruglia over on Pop Music Kingdom:

?I have been busy for the last 12 months writing and recording my 4th album, and started reflecting on the past 10 years and all the fond memories I have of that time.? Natalie says. ?So, I wanted to put out this singles collection to celebrate it.?

Permit me to pour scorn over those remarks. You wanted to celebrate your 10 years by releasing a greatest hits package so that your fan club could spend more money on you? Gee, that’s thoughtful. Smacks of duplicity, Miss Imbruglia.

Especially considering that, since Torn, most of Natalie’s tracks have blended together into some sort of vacuous, bland haze. Yes, she looks great as ever (despite a dodgy bob that makes her head look slightly disconnected from her body), and Glorious is a fairly upbeat, accessible tune. But it’s not memorable at all. For me, Natalie’s relevance in pop music started and ended with Torn and to still be churning out this kind of material 10 years later smacks of laziness and lack of artistic growth. I had such high hopes.