Left of the Middle is the first album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 by Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n singer Natalie Imbruglia

Natalie Imbruglia

Natalie Jane Imbruglia is an Australian singer-songwriter, model and actress. In the early 1990s, Imbruglia was known to audiences as Beth Brennan in the popular Australian soap Neighbours. Three years after leaving the programme, Imbruglia launched a singing career with the international hit,...

. Released in 1997, the album was a worldwide hit. Spurred by the success of lead single "Torn", the album reached number 1 in her home country and the top 10 in both the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and US. The album went on to secure Imbruglia three Grammy nominations, Best Pop Vocal Album, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for the lead single "Torn", and Best New Artist. The album sold over 6 million copies worldwide.

Track listing

Note: "City" is followed by an unexplained five minutes of silence before proceeding into the final track, "Left of the Middle", so while "Left of the Middle" is not a hidden track, since it is a sepearate track from "City" and is listed, it can be mistaken for one.

Reviews

Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

200 (March 1998):

Set up by the runaway success of the alterna-pop single "Torn," debut album by Australian child actress-turned-songwriter Natalie Imbruglia exploded onto The Billboard 200 at No. 10 last issue and stays impressively high this issue. The photogenic, UK-based singer--whose career path is not too different from that of Canadian contemporary Alanis Morissette--stands to follow the success of "Torn" with such other viable pop and rock cuts as "Leave Me Alone", "Don't You Think", "Impressed" and "Wishing I Was There". An album with ample possibilities at modern AC, modern rock, mainstream rock, and pop stations.

Release history

The album was released in the U.S. on 10 March 1998 just two weeks after the first single "Torn" which was released on 24 February 1998.

Country	Release Date
United Kingdom
United States

Chart positions and sales

Left of the Middle, which has sold 7 million copies worldwide to date, is the best selling debut album by female Australian singer of all time.

Chart (1998)	Peak position	Certifications	Sales
Australian ARIA Australian Recording Industry Association The Australian Recording Industry Association is a trade group representing the Australian recording industry which was established in 1983 by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing the Association of Australian Record Manufacturers which was formed in 1956... Albums Chart	1	5× platinum	350,000+
Austrian Albums Chart	11
Belgian (Flanders) Albums Chart	2	Platinum	50,000+
Belgian (Wallonia) Albums Chart	11
Canadian Albums Chart	9	3× platinum	300,000+
Dutch Albums Chart	2	Gold	25,000+
Finnish Albums Chart	8
French Albums Chart	14	Gold	230,300
German Albums Chart	4
Hungarian Albums Chart	15
Irish Albums Chart	53
Italian Albums Chart	4
Mexican Albums Chart		Gold	100,000+
New Zealand Albums Chart	10
Norwegian Albums Chart	39
Swedish Albums Chart	2	Gold	20,000+
Swiss Albums Chart	3	Platinum	50,000+
UK Albums Chart	5	4× platinum	1,143,800
U.S. Billboard 200	10	2× platinum	2,000,000+