How Natalie Imbruglia learned to make friends with her own dark side

“I've always been a rebel. I don't like authority,” laughs Natalie Imbruglia from the other side of a coffee table in a discreet West London hotel. It’s still several months before the release of her new album Algorithm when we meet, but Imbruglia is already in the flow of publicity and singles, taking control and releasing through her own imprint for the first time. “I'm very detail oriented, and I want to be across it. And I just, I guess, probably didn't have the confidence till now, to do it this way and put a team together, and probably would have been terrified to do it.”It’s been five years since the release of her comeback album Firebird, a defiant record of buoyant pop. Realised through a long battle with writer's block and coming off the back of years of label trauma, it propelled her back into the mainstream with empowering success. Since then, her confidence has only grown following a win on The Masked Singer and support from fellow artists including Camila Cabello, Dua Lipa, and Olivia Rodrigo, who brought out Imbruglia for a performance of “Torn” at her 2022 London headline show. Sign up to Best Fit's Substack for regular dispatches from the world of pop culture “I co...