Imogen Heap
I Megaphone

THE REVIEW

If Picasso had his blue period, then every other artist is allowed anything. There are many who start with total independence only to become commercial and even opportunistic years later, just as others start out trendy and heavily influenced by popular artists, and along the way find their own stylistic signature.

This is the case of Imogen Heap, anagrammed into this "iMegaphone," who debuted at just twenty-one in June 1998. In the past decade, although Heap already demonstrated a preference for icy and less accessible electronic sounds, the songwriting of the Essex girl seemed to reference Alanis Morrisette more than the then leading figure of European electronics, the Icelandic Bjork.

Chart pop, nonetheless, and generally stuff that the reviewer writing to you never liked, not even when it was all the rage. Here, while staying within a path that is now a highway, Imogen does everything in her girlish power to avoid the fate of plagiarists. In this, it must be said, the choice for electronics, and generally for sophistication, makes a significant contribution. A contribution that, however, will distance Heap from the upper reaches of the charts, condemning her to certain destinies like the girls crowned queens of cool: loved but not reassuring, everyone dreams of them and no one marries them.

The opening "Getting Scared," and then "Oh Me, Oh My," are tracks for Canadian ducks stripped of electric guitars. "Sweet Religion" has Morissette-style choruses, but at least they are reached through less linear and boring threads than those verbose verses of Alanis, three thousand words and one chord.

Often technology breaks in, alienates, creates mild digressions, diversifies, and on these intrusions, Heap will wisely rely in the future, but here it doesn't really widen the breadth of the tracks. This is the case for the ballad "Shine" or the aforementioned "Oh Me, Oh My."

Definitely better when, rather than the billionaire inventor of "Jagged Little Pill," Imogen seems inspired by P.J. Harvey, more intricate and intriguing. The beautiful "Rake It In," a nursery rhyme for mad criminals that at a certain point turns into a wicked bordello, and quite enjoyable "Come Here Baby," a ballad that starts slow on the piano with an acceleration at just the right point. There are people here, playing and especially producing alongside Heap, who know what sounds and noises are: imagine if these people don't know how to perfectly measure the ingredients of a little ballad, and imagine if they can't craft a more danceable piece, like "Useless," which singularly resembles the dance tracks of Morissette from 2008, rather than those from the nineties.

Similarly, it was unthinkable not to close with the most sensitive and sugary ballad, stuff you'd only expect from the most passive of Monfalconesians. In the middle, the guitar-less rock "Whatever," stuff that with the right sound and the right singer would have been chart-topping, and a single stadium rock, with all the accompanying sound trimmings.

Imogen Heap, at least in this debut, is less original than she wanted to appear even then. Less vocally rowdy but also less powerful and eloquent than her artistic reference at the time, thus more inclined to propose herself in more confidential areas and, like it or not, cool. An artist who will have to measure her compositional talent in various trials and areas to finally find her originality. Starting with Frou Frou.