Polydor banks on Bedingfield.(News)

If asked to name the most successful new UK artist of the past three years, most people would understandably opt for either The Darkness, Busted, Blue or Keane.

But for domestic sales of a debut album, Daniel Bedingfield stands above them all.

His 2002 debut Gotta Get Thru This has to date clocked up UK sales of 1.7m and sold a further 800,000 copies in the US.

So it is little surprise that Bediningfield's label Polydor is putting all its efforts into ensuring the imminent follow-up is one of the biggest titles of the fourth quarter.

"We expect to do 1m albums this year on the hack of one single," says Polydor co-managing director David Joseph, such is his confidence in Bedingfield's second album, Second First Impression, which is due for release on November 1.

It is certainly a bullish state merit to make on behalf of an artist who has been away for more than a year. But on hearing the new material it is hard not to believe that it could indeed be a rate example of a British pop album which defies pigeonholing. It is the type of world class record which perhaps places Bedingfield as the first UK-developed mainstream solo male since George Michael with the chance to breakthrough internationally to superstar status.

The person partly responsible for helping Bedingfield step up into the world-class league is US producer Jack Joseph Puig, who Polydor A&R Simon Gavin approached after hearing his work with John Mayer. "He is an amazing producer who has really worked with Daniel to get out all the ideas he had in his head," says Gavin. Puig, who has previously worked with acts such as No Doubt, Beck and the Black Crowes, has developed Bedingfield's songwriting style, but in contrast has added a contemporary twist by using cutting edge beats in the mix. The mix of classic and modern is perhaps to rock wind Justin Timberlake's Justified was to soul and dance.