Richard ups the X factor with new deal at Virgin. (Talent).

Even those who don't know of Richard X will have been touched by his reign over popular music culture during the past two years.

X's alter ego Girls On Top constructed the records that wrote the bootleg rulebook which has dominated dancefloors ever since. From 2000's Being Scrubbed (which fused Human League's Being Boiled with vocals from TLC's No Scrubs) to I Wanna Dance With Numbers (Whitney with Kraftwerk) to the scene-breaking We Don't Give A Damn About Your Friends, the products of Richard X's unique twist on pop have set the pace.

And such is X's love of pop that he had no qualms about producing a new version of We Don't Give A Damn About Your Friends for newly-signed Universal trio Sugababes at the end of 2001, renaming it Freak Like Me in the process. Some say it was that track--a cover of a bootleg--that was the beginning of the end for the scene, but X clearly doesn't give a damn either way.

"It's my albatross, but I don't care," he says. "The whole bootleg scene is pretty much deed. I was never really part of that scene anyway--I just happened to make a couple of records." Now X's quest to create the ultimate pop single has taken him to pastures new.

"I've abandoned my independent roots and am now making records for Virgin UK," says X in his irony-heavy press release for major label debut Being Nobody, which features vocals from Liberty X. Their partnership has produced ...