“I did three music videos in about three days,” Buble recently told Associated Press Television News. “The next morning after the last video, I got on an airplane and I flew to France, I got there about six o’clock in the morning, Paris time, went to a TV show, did press all day …”

A 29-year-old Vancouver native, Buble has been recording since his teens, and slowly made his name with a series of independent releases. While the major-label connection has resulted in major sales, Buble admits it’s also come with some major headaches.

“The truth is, I wanted to call the record, ‘Feeling Good.’ And think a lot of people at the label thought it sounded a lot like country music,” he explained, sliding into an exaggerated country twang: “‘And ahmmm fee-lin’ gooood!’

“I (eventually) said, ‘Listen, you can call it ‘It’s Crap’ if you like,” Buble continued. “I figured if the title of this record has anything to do with my success or my failure, you know, I’m in the wrong business.'”

Truth be told, Buble said, he’s always felt that way.

“I used to think I was in my own strange world, ‘I’m different than everyone else because I love this style of music. And then I realized, as I went all over the world, that I wasn’t so alone.”

Buble’s lonely road trip continues this spring and summer. He starts touring again in May with a big Canada outing and has dates running into July.

Nevertheless, life on the road has made Buble an occasionally sad, solitary man. Witness his self-penned ballad “Home.”

“For me, it’s a nice, personal statement to say, ‘I can do this as well as being an interpreter of good songs.'”

And, perhaps, the next big pin-up boy.

Special-edition CDs of “It’s Time” include a fold-out poster of the singer, about which Buble can’t resist joking. He opened the CD cover and tried to find it: “Is that it? Boy, they give you a lot of crap with this! See, they SHOULD have called it, ‘It’s Crap.'”

Buble holds the poster up to his face and begins to mock and imitate his own picture: “Oh my . . . He’s so sad. And lonely. Look at how serious he is. You have to see the look: ‘Woe is me.'”