With four full-length solo albums, two of which were self released, a record certified gold by the RCAA and two Grammy’s under her belt, Imogen Heap is a highly accomplished musical artist by any standard. Yet, despite the accolades and critical acclaim, Heap’s pioneering influence on pop music trends for the past decade have gone largely unnoticed. She is a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, producer and the first and only female artist to have won a Grammy for engineering her own album. Her fans include the top-selling pop artists and producers working today as well as modestly renowned author J.K. Rowling. A household name in any sane world, Heap, for whatever reason, is mostly just seen amongst those in the know as a cool indie-pop aunt. Nonetheless, the shadow she casts on the landscape of music today is a long one.
Heap’s 2005 song “Hide and Seek” was a meme in a land before memes, “proto-meme.” The song was originally played in the second season finale of the hit teen drama, “The OC,” in which a main character was killed off in melodramatic fashion. In turn, the finale was parodied on the classic SNL digital short, “Dear Sister,” featuring a fresh-faced Andy Samberg. Thus, the “proto-meme” was born. Thousands of videos posted during the early days of YouTube paired “Hide and Seek” to other scenes in television and movies, often to comedic effect. However, the song’s impact did not end there. “Hide and Seek,” as well as the meme inspired by it, was given a second wind when it was heavily sampled on Jason Derulo’s 2009 song, “Whatcha Say,” which hit number one on the Billboard Top 100. Even 10 years after “Whatcha Say” debuted, the vocoder of “Hide and Seek” is used by artists ranging from Bon Iver to Kacey Musgraves and “Panic! At The Disco.”
Looking back, Heap’s album, “Speak for Yourself,” had always been at least 10 years ahead of its time. The lush maximalist production with glittering synths and glitched out, buzzing bass lines are immediately recognizable trademarks of Heap’s sound. However, those sounds are also immediately recognizable as trademarks of pop music produced in the past five years. The synth-pop inspired textures of the mid-to-late 2010’s such as The 1975’s debut album and Carly Rae Jepsen’s critically acclaimed “Emotion,” were all being put to wax nearly a decade prior on “Speak for Yourself.” Her influence is also far more direct than the textures she pioneered on a 15-year-old album. To date, Heap has directly collaborated with both Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande, sharing writing and production credits on Swift’s song “Clean” while Heap’s song “Goodnight and Go,” was directly sampled and its chorus interpolated on Grande’s song “goodnight n’ go.” Grande herself claims to be a huge fan and names Heap as a main influence. A search through the annals of the pop-icon’s YouTube channel will reveal a younger and less famous Ariana Grande performing Imogen Heap covers into a grainy webcam.
In the world of music tech, Heap is ever on the cutting edge. Heap, working with a team of engineers and designers, developed the “MiMu Smart Gloves” over the course of eight years. The gloves are a piece of wearable technology that turns the artist’s hands and arms into a DJ’s mixer, allowing its wearer to play and loop drum or vocal tracks and apply vocal effects and layers using hand gestures and movements. Heap used these gloves throughout their development on her own tours and recently used the finished version of the “MiMu Gloves” in the opening ceremonies of the 2020 Oscars. Along with Heap, Grande also used a version of the gloves during her 2015 tour.
Despite the decades of innovation and hours of intricate, beautifully produced records, any mention of Imogen Heap is usually met by blank stares. So, this has all been one long winded plea to the Laker Review readership to please listen to this woman’s music. It sometimes gets lonely being Heap fan.
Image from Imogen Heap via YouTube
