Once in a while, a song comes along that defies the usual routine of endless promotion, vast amounts of record company cash and a well-planned campaign and succeeds just because it is a truly great song. Daniel Bedingfield could tell you a thing or two about the phenomenon.

"To this day, I can't take credit for that track," he says about the spectacular success of 'Gotta Get Thru This' and still shaking his head at the memory. "It was really one of those breaks that you hear about. The people who bought it made it, it wasn't an industry thing. People decided they wanted it. They'd come up to me and say 'that song spoke to my soul, it encouraged me'."

It was all the encouragement Daniel needed. A prolific writer, he pens songs like most people need to breathe. Refusing to be constrained by the UK garage tag that was loosely but commonly attached to his first single, Daniel's album darts between smooth R & B, classic pop, heartrending soul and a shameless disco sheen that means that the killer chorus is never far away. It's an album so eclectic that it could only be made by a boy who grew up in Brixton, loves the piano but can't be parted from his computer yet adores Stevie Wonder and Bob Dylan.

Daniel would be the first to admit he's spent his whole life preparing for this moment. Born in New Zealand - "That gave me my desire for independence and pushing boundaries and doing things that no one's supposed to be able to do" -, his parents moved to England when he was just 3 months old and were soon working as social workers in South East London. Hyperactive as a child (to this day Daniel still can't eat sugar) he was writing songs by the age of 6.

"We were singing songs in school and I'd write another verse to it and the whole school would learn it." he laughs. "Then, around 9, I started peforming with my friends. I'd get my little boogie box out and jam with them. Everyone would say, 'mmm, your rap's alright, but Dan, you should sing!'"

He took their advice and formed a band with his two younger sisters, Natasha and Nicola, at first playing mainly at the counselling seminars their mother gave and later touring Europe's festivals.

"Then when I was 16," Daniel explains, "our family cut down on our food budget and saved for a synthesizer. It was like 700 quid or something - this huge amount to us - and the minute dad brought it home I was on it all the time. Then eventually we got a computer which we paid off over two years."

Working as a successful web designer, Daniel found he could happily survive working just 18 weeks a year. The remainder of his time he spent focused on his musical dream and travelling the world, including a stint working with street children in South America and two months in China learning to speak Chinese ("I can manage enough to rent a house and get a girlfriend. What more do you need!" he laughs). On his travels, Daniel fell in love with a red-headed Swiss-American dancer who lived in Leeds, avoided telling her for two and a half years, until finally "gripped by so much tension and desperation to see this girl" he wrote 'Gotta Get Thru This' walking over Tower Bridge on his way to share his feelings.

It was that easy - he even got the girl. A few bedroom tweaks later and Daniel was knocking on, and being sent away from, record company doors all over London. Refusing to be deterred, Daniel pressed up copies on his own and sold the white labels through local record shops. Before long, one of these found its way to UK garage supremo EZ who added the track to his 'Pure Garage 4' compilation. Clubs in Ayia Napa picked up on it and, well, you know the rest. "The number one was a real shock. I'd been hoping and dreaming about it my whole life but it was the fact that it was 'Gotta Get Thru This' that really shocked me. I just gave it to EZ and boom!"

Unusually, it was actually an acoustic performance of the famous track on Top Of The Pops that brought about Daniel's next crucial step. Polydor A & R man Simon Gavin was watching and realized Daniel was about far more than this one song. He immediately offered him a contract.

Since then, Daniel's been getting used to fame and its peculiarities. "My whole life I've walked through the street not caring what other people around me thought. Why should I behave in a public place? And now I have to! Also, my world had to shrink a lot. My phone just wouldn't stop ringing with people who were suddenly my best mates."

Some things have remained the same though. Daniel still works in his bedroom and, indeed, half the final album comes from those original bedroom recordings. He's still writing about the women in his life - four in total inspire the record. And he's still chasing that perfect song, that song that says everything with one listen. The final effect is pop with a soul ('He Don't Love U'), R & B tempered by an urge to hit the dancefloor (the brilliant new single 'James Dean') and stuttering drum n' bass that somehow still keeps an impossibly infectious chorus in sight ('Friday'). It proves truly great songs don't have to be such rarities. That startling beginnings don't necessarily equal one offs.

"This album has been brewing for a long time and I'm really proud of it," Daniel states. "There's a lot of different sounds on there but I think if each song is
heartfelt and it means something, people always get it."D