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Fame is fickle, and current trends can alter faster than the wind. Ask Natalie Imbruglia. Despite some fine song-writing contributions from Coldplay’s Chris Martin and the valiant efforts of top producer Brian Eno, her 2009 album, ‘Come to Life,’ stiffed spectacularly. Lacklustre sales in her homeland — just 740 copies shifted in Australia during its first week in the record shops — prompted her to cancel the album’s official release in the UK. This was disappointing news for an artist who had sold in excess of 8m albums, been nominated for three Grammys and won multiple Brits and MTV awards.

What followed was five years of vocal inactivity, making her return to the recording studio in 2014 an exercise in trepidation. ‘Apart from a few drunken nights out and some shower singing, I hadn’t sung a note for five years. I went into the vocal booth and said to my producer, “I’m not sure what’s going to come out!” ’ Fortunately for her, the sweet, plaintive voice was still there and the lyrical skills came back, too. Interviewed at the time of her comeback album’s release in 2015, she was moved to say – ‘I didn’t want any electronic sounds on the album… I wanted it to be vocally driven and storytelling-raw.’ Essentially a collection of covers, the album would be characterised by generally good reviews and reasonable sales – sufficiently large to break the Top 30 in her native Australia and the UK.

Taking time out from an industry that can ‘chew you up and spit you out’ is no bad thing, but Umbruglia is no ex-Beatle busy baking bread whilst a worldwide audience clamours for more product. She’s had her five year sabbatical, and there’s a follow up album of original material now in the works, but at 40 she’s undeniably lost ground, and needs to redefine her market very carefully. Teenage memories are notoriously short.