Natalie is 18 years old. She hasn't been to stage school. She has never auditioned for a TV advert. When she grows up, she wants to be herself. If Madonna and Alannis Morisette had a child, she would want to be Natalie Dawn. Euphoric enough to be pop, realistic enough to be rock, Natalie straddles genres and styles like John Wayne with ovaries and an attitude. More 4 real than the scars on a Manic Street Preacher's fan's arms, she sings with the passion of an eager teenage girl and the wisdom of an experienced woman.

"Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can." - Owen Meredith

Everything is emotion: forget the fake plastic scenes and the one-dimensional teens whoring themselves and their bodies for their fifteen minutes of fame on the off-chance that they might end up with a minor role in a soap opera which isn't their own lives. Natalie sings because she has to - she doesn't have a choice. Surprising as it might seem in this day and age, there are songs here: vivid, varied, vital songs all imbued with Natalie's charm, style and rich emotional resonance.

Anyone can see that today's current pop scene is a stagnant pool of half-arsed 70s disco and insipid, tedious AOR. Sly, conniving millionaires wrestling with vacuous do-anything wannabes for the prime space at the cash trough, selling themselves and their music to the highest bidders; their snouts so deep in the financial feedbox that they have forgotten that it is supposed to be about art and entertainment. Natalie brings it back down to the true basics: "people's feelings, real drama".

"The worst thing I can think of would be to pull people off by faking it and pretending." - Kurt Cobain, from his suicide note.

Look: there is reality here. There is emotion: take your pick from love, hate, passion, anger, euphoria, disappointment, wonder and sadness. Through Natalie's music, you can live your life or be transported away from it. Contemplate different ideas, or have your own validated. Get picked up in the emotion, or just lie back and lose yourself in the comforting beauty that a honey-coated voice can bring. At 17, life is a blank canvas to Natalie, but she's been making sketches.