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

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. 

“I couldn't believe she knows who I am,” Imbruglia laughs. “I’ve got lots to thank Olivia for. I mean, when young artists give you props like that, it can keep your career going, so I'm incredibly grateful to her. She's a very impressive young artist. I can't explain how great that feels, to have the validation from artists I hugely admire that are coming up through the ranks. It's really important to me and wonderful to have their stamp of approval because they are the future.”

Imbruglia’s confidence was also boosted from the experience of motherhood, her priorities and internal struggles shifting focus. “It's very hard to explain. It's like I'm more driven, but I don't care at the same time,” she says. “I think becoming a mum, I think it's the mama bear, you're just driven in a way for your child, I think because there's no ego in that. I think a lot of the melancholy depression that's self-indulgent that you don't realise till after, and you know maybe it's not self-indulgent, there's just no time for it. I'm too busy scheduling how we do next week, and then the next week, and then your life becomes scheduling.”

Her seventh album Algorithm, out next week, marks her first time self-funding and self-releasing. Setting up her Landgirl Records imprint via Republic of Music, the label name was inspired by her son’s lessons on World War II. While past albums were impacted by traumatic label relations, this time her choice to go independent was a further shift in following her own creative heart and goals. 

Unlike her past experiences of following up on success, Imbruglia’s empowered perspective allowed her to approach the record with a sense of play. The weight of expectation also felt lighter, a double-edged sword for any woman over thirty-something working in the spotlight. “As far as expectation goes in the industry, sad to say it, but as you get older, there's less of it. I mean, it's more enjoyable for me because I'm not competing with all of that. Now, maybe that's good, maybe that's bad. I'm still doing it. I don't feel invisible. I feel respected,” she says. “I don't think anyone will ever put as much pressure as I put on myself for the second album, just to complete it.” 

Referring to her 2001 album, White Lilies Island, through which she battled writer’s block following the runaway success of her enduring hit “Torn”, the album sold over a million copies worldwide but couldn’t emulate the success of her Grammy-nominated debut. “It'll never be that hard. But I think releasing a song called ‘That Day’, with no chorus was my two fingers up. Like, there is not a second ‘Torn,” she laughs. “I think my spiritual intention on that album was more honed than the first album, and I get that reward still now, ten years later from the fans, and so I hold that in higher esteem, and I think it's a choice as well. Like, I'm either in the shadow of a song that connected around the world to so many people, or I feel blessed because of it, and I choose the latter. I mean, how can you make that a negative thing? That could have just been an absolute nightmare if I wanted it to be. But I go on stage and I sing that song as if it's the first time I'm singing it, and I'm so grateful for how it changed my family's life.”

Over the five years since the release of Firebird, Imbruglia has been working non-stop, juggling single parenting with a growing live profile and the sessions for Algorithm. “I'm annoyed because I wanted it to only be two years,” she laughs. “I definitely am the turtle that wins the race. I don't have this need to have something, like, I gotta keep churning it out. For me, it's more important to get it right and take longer and have the product be better and fully formed.”

In sessions she took the lead, insisting that the writing and production happen in tandem and with consistency across each song, continuing the creative control she took on Firebird as co-producer. “I genuinely think that anything you do, practice makes you better at it,” she says. “I was like, I need to write with my co-producers. So I set out from the get-go that I'm not going to recreate a song written on a guitar, and that really changed the whole thing. That's a really empowering thing to get to a place where you're in command of so many levels of the song. It used to just be the words a bit more, and I was reliant on the musicians, because I don't play. To get to a place where you're able to take ownership further out, it's so fun.”

Imbruglia found an old Rough Trade compilation, making a playlist of the various sounds and parts of songs she found interesting, growing writing sessions from inspirational clips instead of pre-formed ideas. “We walk in with absolutely nothing. I was like, ‘Hear that thing in that song? I just like that one bit.’ So then I’d play them something else. I'm like, ‘Hear this?’” she says. “I tried to get my collaborators into my brain of  what I'm liking about music. So I was like, disruption and melody - to think about the instruments as vocalists. We just played, and it was fun. I just had the best time.”

Across the album, she worked with a range of writers and producers including longtime friends MyRiot, with whom she collaborated on Firebird, Fraser T Smith, Anu Pillai and David Sneddon, who since his time on Fame Academy has written for the likes of Lana Del Rey, Nicole Scherzinger and Pixie Lott. “He was like my four leaf clover,” she smiles. “He's an extraordinary songwriter. When you unlock another thing, with anything that you do, it creates more of a freedom. So having the people so invested that I was working with, and it following through to the production side of things.”

Another way Imbruglia directed her co-writers and producers was by creating characters for the songs. Drawing from her acting background, she’d describe the sound and vibe of a song by personifying it. “Sometimes when I get a melody, I get a character - ‘It's like David Bowie, and this is how he's walking,’” she explains. “I do think songs have characters, and so sharing that, and also sharing what's going on with me with my mental health was a big thing on this record, which is ironic because it's such a feel good album.” 

The creation of Algorithm came at a time when Imbruglia was perimenopausal, a monumental shift in her personal life which directly affected her day to day as well as her ability to perform live. “I hit perimenopause and mentally my neurodivergence was dialed up, so I was processing and dealing with a lot of changes, a lot of which I just didn't want to accept were happening,” she says. “So coming into work with a bunch of lads and going, ‘Guys, seriously, I mean, before the show I was a nightmare,’ and kind of sharing stuff that I'm like, ‘I think I'm going to have to quit my job.’ Everyone shares these things, and you end up laughing. But the thread through it, some of these things were quite dark mental health stuff. But that's the beauty of music. That's what's so wonderful about it.”

First single “Upside Down” charts Imbruglia’s struggle of balancing work with her hormonal changes, and questioning if she could continue. A bright spark of melodic hook, the feel of the song’s production juxtaposes with its dark theme, quite literally flipping the energy on its head. Tracking a distinctly female experience, it’s amusing that Imbruglia wrote the song with Pillai and Sneddon, two men. “Oh gosh, I am famous for just busting out the menopause chat,” she laughs. “I am Australian, you know. I mean, we don't really hold back. Goes down great in the Cotswolds - dinner party chat.”

Rather than quitting music entirely, Imbruglia used the tools at her disposal to work through the challenges she was facing. On “Upside Down” she explores that process. “It's like what you resist persists. I had a lot of shame around a particular behavior to do with my neurodivergence before a show and how I get, and I could be really hard on myself, trying to stop something with willpower when it's your wiring, it doesn't necessarily work and sets you up for failure,” she says. “You can turn something on its head. There are other ways of looking at a situation that don't create such a black and white - this has to stop now or I'm a bad person. I love the visual of making friends with your dark side.”

For Imbruglia, the stigma that still persists around talking about menopause was reason enough to unpack its themes across her record. “I would say for me, the moment I got a glimmer of shame around it, I was like, no way,” she says. “I think a lot of women feel that and would never admit it, not even to themselves. I just think there's absolutely no reason that it shouldn't be spoken about. I tell everyone. I've done HRT intervention to many a woman. I just think we have to support each other as women, and if it's something you've unlocked and realised and you can help other people feel okay about it, then you should do that.”

Taking cues from Davina McCall’s Channel 4 documentaries Sex, Myths and the Menopause and Sex, Mind and the Menopause, and celebrating in Sophie Ellis Bextor’s 2025 album Perimenopop, Imbruglia took a similar approach to her writing, turning what was once taboo into mainstream commentary. She sings about her experience specifically on “Who Dimmed The Lights”, a diaristic rush of acoustic-driven pop that balances subtle hooks with tender delivery. “I do think there's a camaraderie with a lot of my peers who are still still doing this, and it feels very supportive, and there seems to be quite a few of us still going and talking about these issues,” she says. “There has to be people who are pushing the boundary and moving these issues into the mainstream, making it completely normal to talk about. And it usually comes from the arts, which is lovely.”

The title-track “Algorithm” tackles our screen-obsessed culture and the addictive draw of falling deeper into the doom scroll. A proggy cut of electronic pop that pulses with playful synths, the middle eight breaks down the big picture absurdity into cool, almost AI-like spoken word. “There's a lot of sense of humor in this album,” says Imbruglia. “The whole social media kind of the world that we're living in, I think it's just important for us to remember that you can't just blame the phone. You don't have to have the phone in the room. You can change the algorithm on the phone. You can learn how to change the settings. But you know, there's this sick, twisted like, I just let it take me wherever it wants to take me. But it is a choice.”

Across the myriad topics Imbruglia explores over the record, from breakups to destructive behaviour, the core theme that ties everything together is mental health. She chose “Algorithm” as the title track to help bring it all together. “‘Algorithm’ is my favorite song on the album and I just think it opens the whole conversation about mental health and also the times and what we're dealing with,” she says. “I still don't know how to change my algorithm, so I'm a victim, I am the problem, but it's like, I just follow it down rabbit holes. I also wanted to speak on this issue, like, we all need to be responsible for the fact that we're not being taken over. We're also choosing to be taken over. You can actually say, "I'm not interested in that.”

On “Endgame” she questions the cycle of work and the importance we place on careers. Another collaboration with Pillai and Sneddon, it has a glossy 90s pop punch to match its thematic discontent. “We tell ourselves that we're on the hamster wheel for good reason. It's like, I'm providing for my child, I'm trying. All these reasons at the expense of what?” she says. “I went out for a cigarette, and I came back in. I'm like, ‘Guys, what's the end game?’ If you forget to look up and you forget to be in the present moment, what is the point of life? How far are you going to take it? How far are you going to push your mental health? At what point are you going to recognise that all that's really real is now in this present moment? It's to do with mental health. It's like, we'll push ourselves and tell ourselves there's a good reason, and they're all valid reasons, but at the expense of what?”

Another constant on the album is the way that Imbruglia balances the big, darker topics she tackles with colourful, uplifting production. Collaborating with production duo MyRiot on the glistening sad banger “Just Drive” she narrates a painful breakup over a throbbing “Dancing On My Own” bassline. “That's my little Robyn-esque, isn't it?” she laughs. “You hit a point in your life, example perimenopause, and you're having to break up with someone because it's bad enough going through it, but watching you watch me go through it… that was my experience. It can be a loving thing to do, but that's not necessarily how it's going to be received. That's probably the most honest, raw song on the album.”

The Robyn comparison also holds true in the way Imbruglia manages to tell a story which feels both deeply personal and yet easily relatable. “I think a lot of artists really value the experience of the listener above the ego. There's that thing of like, wanting people to know what something's about, but not wanting to take the joy of them making it their own,” she says. “I always struggle with how much do you share? I think broad strokes - becoming a mother, mental health. You can talk about it, but when it gets to real specifics, I don't want you to be listening to my song and thinking about what I told you it was about for me.”

Closing out the record with "Beautiful Love”, a heartswell of optimistic romanticism and firework melody, it feels like an intentional conclusion to the journey of Algorithm. “Absolutely, that's why it's at the end because for me in my brain you can't put that before the other bits because it's in chronological order in my head,” she says. “But also, the songs decide the track listing. I had two songs I wanted on the album that aren’t on the album, and so it's a case of listening and what goes into the next one. I'm like shit, and I bump it down, and then I'm like, that song doesn't fit on the album, and then I have to mourn the loss of that track, that it's not on there. They have their own energy and they kind of decide as well. And also, I do have a thing about eleven tracks. Bono always said to me, ‘Eleven tracks.’ So that's in my head… Just pick that name up off the floor.”

Writing “Beautiful Love” with Gary Lightbody and Fraser T Smith, another quick name drop, their collaboration reinforced her growing confidence as both writer and producer. “I was so intimidated by the two of them, and I walked in, and me being me, I'm like an introvert/extrovert. When I'm really nervous, I just fill the space with chat, and you know, if they don't speak, I speak more. But once we got into the making of the music, it just flowed, and I felt really supported. And Gary, he really listened to what I was talking about and made sure that was in the song. There was no ego in the room,” she says. “It was one of the last songs I wrote, and therefore it's probably an introduction to where I'll go next with my writing.”

On Algorithm, Imbruglia sounds like she’s having fun. From playful production tricks and knowing lyrics to some truly impactful and introspective songwriting, the record embodies her hard-earned confidence and creative freedom. Where she goes next is up to her.