Buble's brush with his idols

With his two most recent Grammy Award nominations, Canadian crooner Michael Buble is the first to admit that he's experiencing mixed emotions upon finding himself contending for the music industry's highest honour alongside several musicians in whose footsteps he's following.

"I grew up idolising Bruno Mars and John Mayer," Buble, 35, says. Actually, the question about his fellow nominees had to do with those he's up against in the traditional pop vocal album category: Johnny Mathis, Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow and Rod Stewart — not so much the ones he's vying with for the male pop vocal Grammy: Mars, Mayer, Adam Lambert and Michael Jackson.

"All joking aside," he quickly added, "I did grow up idolising all those people" in the traditional pop category, "but I think the person who probably had the biggest impact on my life musically was Michael Jackson, without a doubt. It's pretty thrilling to even be connected with him by being nominated in this category."

"It's absolutely a privilege to be nominated among your peers," he said, "but the truth is now, because of Wikipedia, no matter what happens, I can go in and change it: ‘Michael Buble has won 27 Grammys as the best artist ever.' Actually, it was so nice to win the first one," he said, referring to his 2007 win for traditional pop vocal album for his Call Me Irresponsible collection. "Everything after that is icing on the cake."

Humour

Beyond the old-school, Rat Pack style of classic pop singing that's earned him two Grammys and helped him sell more than 12 million albums in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan, perhaps the biggest asset Buble has going for him is his sense of humour.

He's quick with a wisecrack, and can be wittily urbane or mildly blue, self-aggrandising or self-deprecating all in the space of a few moments. His livewire personality has made him a favourite of daytime or late night talk show hosts. It doesn't hurt that he's also magazine-cover handsome, or that he's dated the rich and famous — for three years he was involved with British actress Emily Blunt; recently he announced his engagement to Argentine actress, singer and model Luisana Lopilato.

In retrospect it can seem like a no-brainer to suggest there has always been, and will always be, an audience for someone like Buble: a good-looking singer who has a voice with character, applied skilfully to impeccably crafted songs of romance.

"It's not too obvious to say that," said Rob Cavallo, the veteran rock producer who signed and produced Green Day and in September was named chairman of Warner Bros. Records, Buble's label.

Great personality

"His success serves as a good reminder that great talent, traditional song sense and great personality in singing are still what matter most."

Buble's latest album, Crazy Love, entered the US sales chart at No 1 and has sold 1.9 million copies in a little over a year, according to SoundScan, and last week brought him the two Grammy nominations. And for a singer who built his reputation with hip, swinging pop standards such as Fly Me to the Moon and All of Me and hyper-romantic classic ballads including Call Me Irresponsible and The Way You Look Tonight, he's also cannily delivered two bona fide hits with singles he wrote or co-wrote: Everything, a promise of enduring love that's turning into a modern-day standard popular at weddings, and Haven't Met Her Yet, his enumeration of the qualities of the ideal partner that he says was inspired by Lopilato.

After working in tandem on his first three albums with adult pop maestro David Foster, who also brought Josh Groban to the world's attention, Buble wanted to try something new as he was working on Crazy Love.

He drafted Metallica producer Bob Rock to supervise several tracks on the album, which resulted in some rougher edges on Crazy Love that Buble concedes probably turned off some older fans.

"I've got two thoughts about stuff like that," he said.

"The first is, if it's not broken, why are you fixing it? At the same time, if you have this vision artistically, you've got to go for it. You can't worry about hurting people's feelings; you've got to do what you've got to do."

One of the biggest breaks Buble made from his past was to record songs essentially live in the studio. Where he'd been used to recording countless takes that were then stitched together by way of ProTools, it's been a revelation for him to sing live while surrounded by the supporting musicians, which is the way he says he wants to continue to work in the studio from now on.

"If the audience wants to follow the artist's journey and the evolution of what they do, then I don't think it's too big a risk [to branch out]," Cavallo said. "What's great about Michael is, he can try something new, and if it feels good, he knows it. He's also talented enough to know that if it's not working, he's not going to put it out....

"He's still really young," Cavallo said.""In some ways, he's just getting going. I think he's going to be around for a really long time."