Speak for Yourself

Dear sister, By the time you read this, I’ll be dead. This is how I think it will happen. Dave will shoot me, then I’ll shoot dave. Then Eric will enter and get shot by Dave, then you will walk in and get shot by Eric, Dave and I multiple times. Love, your brother, Keith P.S: Then two cops will read this letter and shoot eachother.

To my absolute shame, I slept on this at the time. Largely on the assumption, based purely on her name alone that it would be bland singer songwriterly crap. I COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORE WRONG. This is intensely emotional, wildly innovative electronic pop that still sounds years ahead of it's peers. Absolutely brilliant and I am so happy to have been proven utterly wrong and a shallow, judgemental fraud.

I'll freely admit that this almost entirely washed over me. Unassuming background music to listen to while doing something else. That is until Heap's love letter to Laurie Anderson's O Superman. I'm pretty sure I've heard it before - no idea where but it sure has been a while. It was enough to switch me from passive to active listening, and I'm glad of it. I might have to go back and re-listen to the first few tracks more intently

Rating: 8/10 Best songs: Headlock, Loose ends, Hide and seek, Clear the area, Closing in

Speak for Yourself is the second solo album of former Frou Frou singer Imogen Heap. Her powerful voice combines on a top level with the music consisting of electronic soundscapes. Some songs are synth pop sounding quite commercial others are more experimental. Heap produced, recorded, arranged, mixed, and designed the cover art on her own.

She’s more than just hide and seek, you know. Not MUCH more. But more

This album was good when Hide and Seek blew up because of SNL and it is still good now

Cute indie-pop album. Good singer

Some female-driven electronic-oriented pop music?! Great choice to suggest for this list! Haven’t listened to Imogen Heap before. Terrific!

Hot damn, manages to evoke not only nostalgia for '05, but amazement that something that sounds like this is as old as '05

I've never really listened to Imogen Heap. I knew the name and obviously that one famous bit of a song. I know she has influenced many artists who came after. The album got stronger on the back half. My personal rating: 4/5 My rating relative to the list: 4/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Yes.

That song from the OC triggered some ancient memories 😳

Queeny

Mmm what you saaaay

I wrote a while thing about the mid-to-late- twenty ought vibe surrounding how I first heard Heap's music (on a compilation disk called Art of Chill 2 I got as a digital download as an Musica subscriber in their Indie-only days), and accidentally backed out of and lost it. Anyway pretty amazing talent, lyrically she paints a compelling picture of herself as a scary but exciting girlfriend.

Never would have listened to this without it being on this list. Probably won’t listen to it again. Having said that I did enjoy the listen. Just not quite the sound that brings me back.

Pop, electropop, art pop, alternative rock. Ni fu ni fa.

Speak for Yourself does quite a lot and often quite well for what to the uninformed me seemed like another female solo singer-songwriter effort. It finds a delicate beauty in the first two tracks and then Hide and Seek, but the autotune styling really grates for me so that's a mark down, it gets heavy and rocky on Daylight Robbery which I obv liked a lot, it got a Jeff Beck cameo on that second track, and then ofc it does that dreamy pop stuff you'd expect on songs like Just for Now. I think it's more an interesting album than a very good one but it is solid 3/5 good that had some cool moments.

Interesting. Imogen Heap's original band, Frou Frou, was a borefest for me. But as far as mid-naughts pop albums go, I find this solo LP of hers to be far more daring and adventurous overall. I even think some of the songs in it were groundbreaking for the genre, foretelling some hyperpop tones a decade earlier, while still retaining elegance associated to more timeless songwriting chops. "Headlock" and "Loose Ends" are clear bangers, "Hide And Seek" is a minimalist vocoder-laden jewel -- experimental, cinematic and endearing all at the same time --, "Have You Got It One You?" is both melodic and hypnotic, and "Daylight Robbery" kind of rocks. A lot of those tracks could be released today and sound fresh and current -- readymade for pop charts. The rest is more run-of-the-mill, standardized fare, unfortunately -- especially on the second half. Some cuts still have a foot firmly planted in their era, and the all-too-sweet vocal lines can be sickening after some point. Pop with commercial ambitions most often has a clear peremption date written its forehead, and Heap is not immune to that kind of flaw. Sure, her streaming numbers are quite impressive today, especially with this 20-year-old album. Yet those numbers are also explained by a "product placement", as explained in the wikipedia blurb. And truly "legendary" pop music needs more than that to enter public consciousness. That last point is a very personal requirement of mine, sure, and one I don't apply for other music styles. The thing is, when you decide to release music with such blatantly commercial flavors, the industry's "logic" will help you more than for niche genres. So I guess I can only select the cream on the proverbial cake for such pop music records. It's a question of setting the karmic balance right. Not everything in art should be about sales numbers anyway... 3/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 8/10 for more general purposes (5 + 3) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 72 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 90 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 174 (including this one) ---- Émile, tu trouveras ma dernière réponse sous le *Inside* de Bo Burnham

The one Lonely Island skit making fun of ‘Hide and Seek’ is about 5x more entertaining than this album.

Mm what you say. Mm what you say. Mmm what you mm what you mm what you mm what mm what mm mm mm what you say. Mm that you only meant well…..Got ourselves a bloodbath. The albums fine. The OC made it relevant. SNL made it famous. 4.5/10

To me this is pretty middle of the road and uninteresting.

Hide and seek was definitely an anomaly. Layers of vocals, strings, keys, and boredom.

This album is a nice bit of soft indie rock for a rainy morning. Super easy listening. I am not sure anyone would have ever heard it really had it not been for the OC followed by SNL. Good use of Vocoder I guess to soup up an otherwise boring track. This records is just fine I suppose? Nothing really to see here.

Usch