Daniel Bedingfield: Gotta Get Thru This

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * )

It seems that with hits like Gotta Get Thru This, New Zealand-born but English-bred Bedingfield has already emerged as a break-out star of UK garage — what Jamiroquai was to acid jazz, Bedingfield could well prove to two-step. And like Jay Kay, he has his own line in Stevie Wonder vocal impersonation on Girlfriend.

Elsewhere, on this solid if melodically unspectacular debut album, Bedingfield's also channelling the Sting/Police (Friday, Inflate My Ego — which also lifts The Theme from Peter Gunn), while on the funk-pop James Dean (I Wanna Know) and the ballad Without The Girl he challenges Justin Timberlake and Darren Hayes for the title of "white Michael Jackson".

The boy sure can sing — as the acoustic reprise of the title track at the end shows — but song-wise he's just a little too much like a collection of other people's best bits to leave much of an impression beyond the hits.

Label: Polydor