The Sunday Round-Up: 14th-20th July (Imogen Heap's Speak For Yourself, 20 Years On, and The Making of Queen's The Game)

Plus, more tales of music history involving Elton John, Nico, Beastie Boys, and Bob Dylan

Imogen Heap’s Speak For Yourself, 20 Years On (released 18th July 2005)

The album that gave us ‘Hide and Seek’, a favourite for television and film soundtracks (including the OC, Normal People, and Zach Braff 2006 rom-com, The Last Kiss), Imogen Heap’s Speak For Yourself is a product of self-production, determination, experimentation, and a love for technology. Heap even mortgaged her London flat to finance the album, the follow-up to her 1998 debut, I Megaphone.

While Speak For Yourself was Heap’s first solo-produced record, she enlisted the help of Richie Mills, Mich Gerber, and the man described by Rolling Stone as ‘one of the most influential lead guitarists in rock’¹, Jeff Beck, to provide instrumentation.

Personnel:

• Imogen Heap: vocals, production, mixing, engineering, programming

• Richie Mills: background vocals (‘Headlock’, ‘The Moment I Said It’), drums (‘Have You Got It In You’, ‘Loose Ends’, ‘Daylight Robbery’, ‘Closing In’)

• Mich Gerber: bass (‘Headlock’, ‘Have You Got It In You?’)

• Jeff Beck: guitar (‘Goodnight and Go’)

Here, in Imogen Heap’s own words, is the story behind Speak For Yourself…

‘Speak for Yourself, at the time, was very experimental for me; I produced it all myself, and I’d never done an album entirely on my own, so I look back and I do think it was kind of the beginning of where I’ve ended up now; it gave me the confidence to pursue any weird idea I had.’²

‘I bought all the gear to soup up my studio and had it delivered in time for my 26th birthday. I then booked my mastering session for the day before my next birthday so I wouldn’t go over a year. I spent my 27th birthday walking through the moors in Devon with a crazy dog who belonged to the B&B I was staying at for the night after the session. I hadn’t felt so light in quite a long time.’³

‘I kept a graph which had keys down the X and tempos down the Y to make sure I didn’t double up on anything or go over old ground. The funny thing is that I completely left out E! Hence, there are no songs in E… if you get the UK packaged album, you’ll see a little bit of the graph on the back cover.’⁴

‘’Clear the Area’ was the first to arrive on the scene. Early snippets of much of the album like ‘Daylight Robbery’ and ‘The Walk’ were formed early on but only got finished months later. ‘I’m in Love With You’ was a song I’d written whilst being on tour with Rufus Wainwright when I was 19. It’s one I’ve always liked and went down well. I got all my new gear and the last thing I wanted to do was to spend two weeks writing a song… BORING! So I set to producing and sprucing up an old one. That’s was fun to do.’⁵

‘It was sweet how [‘Hide and Seek’] happened. I had had a really bad ‘day at the office’ as my shiny new computer blew up on me. Real puff of smoke and sparks material. I was about to leave the studio defeated, which is always a bad thing. Those days can spiral into weeks and it’s important to try to do at least one thing in a day you’re happy with. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a harmoniser. I hadn’t yet written anything with this piece of gear but had always wanted to do an a-cappella on this album. I powered it up and connected my microphone into the box and recorded the output to my mini desk…

The first thing I sung/played, and four minutes later was and is the melody and harmony of the final version. Lyrically, it wasn’t all there apart from ‘Where are we, what the hell is going on?’ And some random lines but I had the idea of ‘Hide and Seek’ a while beforehand. It was like magic. Just as I struck the last chord, a train went by outside the window and you can hear this in the final version. There was something so special about this version, I was gutted it had no lyrics really to speak of but every breath and chord of the demo I copied as best I could to get everything from that 2am moment on to this record. I love this song as it feels as if it’s not mine because it took so little time to finish as others take weeks, months! Feels like a gift.’⁶

Asked how she met Jeff Beck, Heap said…

‘I met Jeff one beautiful autumn evening just after dinner, in the courtyard of a 12th century castle in Anguleme, France. 30 people or so are invited by Miles Copeland to his French gaff every year to drink wine, eat fantastic food, laugh, drive around in his golf cart and oh yeah… write some music! I remember [Beck] teaching me a few guitar tricks for beginners! Liked him instantly.’⁷

Following their meeting, Heap ended up working on Beck’s Grammy-award winning album, You Had It Coming (2000), and when asked at the time if the two had any plans to work together in the future, Heap’s response was ‘I hope we’ll get together and do something again. I don’t know what yet. Maybe I could ask him if he could go finger licking mad on my next record? I should take him up on that dinner one of these days too. Mmmm.’⁸

Evidently, Beck took up Heap’s invitation, playing guitar on Speak For Yourself’s 2nd track, ‘Goodnight and Go’…

Asked about the tools and gadgets she uses, Heap told Anti Music…

‘I take my little Mbox on the road with me. I use Garage band to throw an idea down cos I’ve always got my laptop with me. Pro-Tools HD at my studio. Pro-Tools LE at home […] Speak and Spell/Math, EMX 1, my trust Ensoniq TS12 keyboard I’ve had since forever it seems, my Avalon 737 preamp, a POD XT. Ton of acoustic instruments […] A gazillion plug-ins and virtual instruments. I am gadget queen though in everyday life too.’⁹

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20 years on, Speak For Yourself stands up as a sterling example of the self-proclaimed ‘gadget queen’’s personality, work ethic, graph skills, and experimental, ephemeral vocals. Plus, according to Spotify, as of May 2025, the album is as popular as ever, earning 1 million streams every day¹⁰.

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The Making of Queen’s The Game (this album became Queen’s 3rd UK no.1 on 19th July 1980)

The Game is Queen’s 8th studio album, recorded at a time when disco was all the rage, popularised by artists including the Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Kool & The Gang, Diana Ross, Chic, and the release of ‘Saturday Night Fever’ in 1977.

In his retrospective review of the album, Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes ‘Queen had long been one of the biggest bands in the world by 1980’s The Game, but this album was the first time they made a glossy, unabashed pop album, one that was designed to sound exactly like its time […] Most of the album is devoted to disco-rock blends - best heard on the globe-conquering ‘Another One Bites The Dust.’¹¹

While ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ (a US no.1) is an example of Queen adopting disco, the album’s first single release, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ (Queen’s first no.1 in the US) marks the band’s love for Elvis Presley and original rock ‘n’ roll.

So, here are some quotes from producer, Reinhold Mack, and Queen’s band members, on the album’s two biggest songs, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ and ‘Another One Bites The Dust’…

‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’

Reinhold Mack (Producer):

‘I remember [my first meeting with Queen] in 1980 very well. I was working with Gary Moore in Los Angeles and was told Queen would be in Musicland Studios, in Munich, and might need me. I bought a plane ticket and went to Munich. When I met Freddie, he said, ‘What are you doing here?’ I told him I had heard there might be a good chance Queen wanted to work with me. He said not really, because the band were coming off a Japanese tour and only had two more weeks to spend outside the UK. ‘Anyway,’ he suddenly said, ‘I hear they have these wonderful beer gardens.’ It was early summertime and we knew it was very nice outside, so we headed to the Chinese Tower for a couple of beers […] We became very happy with the beers and we went back to the studio and that is where the ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ single started for the album The Game.’¹²

‘Meanwhile, Roger [Taylor] and [John] Deacon had come down. Freddie said ‘Can we just do this real quick? I just have an idea I want to get down as a reference so I don’t forget it. Don’t worry, I can’t play guitar!’ I put him in a little booth right next to the control room […] We put a track down and, being good musicians as they are, that is the track you hear! Freddie said ‘Let’s do this real quick, before Brian [May] comes. Otherwise it will take weeks to get it done. So, we had the basic structure [to ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’]. The next thing was a couple of overdubs.’¹³

Freddie Mercury:

‘’Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ took me five or ten minutes [to write.] I did that on the guitar, which I can’t play for nuts, and in one way it was quite a good thing because I was restricted, knowing only a few chords. It’s a good discipline because I simply had to write within a small framework. I couldn’t work through too many chords and because of that restriction I wrote a good song, I think.’¹⁴

Brian May:

‘[‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’] is Freddie’s tribute to Elvis in a way. He was very fond of Elvis… and of Cliff [Richard]. Freddie wrote it very quickly and rushed and put it down with the boys. By the time I got there, it was almost done, and I think the sounds that Mack [producer] managed to get, these very elemental, very real, very ambient sounds in the studio, had a big contribution to make. It does sound very authentic. Everything about it is like original rock ‘n’ roll.’¹⁵

‘It always happens. If I go out for a couple of hours, they create something else. I came back and they’d already put down the backing track [to ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’]. Roger just had the live drums, Freddie had played acoustic guitar ‘cause that rhythm on there is Freddie. I don’t think I played any of that.’¹⁶

‘I used one of Roger’s really old, beat up, natural wood Telecasters [on ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’]. I got bludgeoned playing it. That was [producer Reinhold] Mack’s idea. I said ‘I don’t want to play a Telecaster.’ It basically doesn’t suit my style. But ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ was such a period piece, it seemed to need that period sound. So, I said ‘Okay, Mack, if you want to set it up, I’ll play it.’ He put it through a Mesa/Boogie, which is an amplifier I don’t get on with at all; it just doesn’t suit me. I tried it, and it sounded okay.’¹⁷

Roger Taylor:

‘We recorded [‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’] six months before the rest of the album […] It took half an hour to record. I remember [Freddie Mercury] came in the studio. He says ‘My dear, I just wrote this in the bath’ and he did. He’d just been lying in the bath, and there it was. It was very simple, very easy, and it had a great fresh sound to it.’¹⁸

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‘Another One Bites The Dust’

Reinhold Mack (Producer):

‘[The drum loop on ‘Another One Bites The Dust] was built out of boredom, from my side, because nobody would show up in the studio. [Laughter]. I started this loop and, in order not to step on anybody’s toes, I put in these ominous, backwards piano notes. It’s just a different piece of tape turned over. Things you can do when you’re playing by yourself in the control room. Deaky [John Deacon] said ‘I’ve got some notes for this.’ Freddie said he had some lyrics. He didn’t have them written down, but had them memorised: ‘It’s called ‘Another One Bites The Dust’. The bits before and after? I didn’t get to those.’ He didn’t have any! He had a phrase. The riff, which is really, to an extent, the Chic thing [Chic’s ‘Good Times’] with a couple of alterations, was put down and it started taking shape…

We did some drum rolls and little cymbal crashes. For instance, that percussion thing in the middle section is some weird mistake going down. That was the Infernal Machine [a digital processing unit] that I had on loan from Publison — the French manufacturer. I tried to mute something; my finger hit the knob and it turned up and went through the Machine — it sounded good! [laughter] Even the end has a mistake. John told me months and months later, "It's number one, but it's still not perfect." I asked why, but he went, "I won't tell you." Finally he said, "Well, at the very end [mimics drum roll] there's a hi-hat going 'chhh" that should have been muted." But nobody has written in or complained.’¹⁹

Brian May:

‘[Roger Taylor] worked with Freddie on the vocal [of ‘Another One Bites The Dust’]. Deacy didn't sing, so he would tell Freddie what the words were, and play the tune on the guitar. You can imagine it was quite a strange process. Freddie absolutely adored it. He just stepped into it with a vengeance. And he sang it until he bled! He was forcing himself to get those high notes and he loved it. Freddie really was such a driving force […] Because, to be honest, it wasn't going down very well with the rest of us. You know, Roger actually didn't want to have it on the album, didn't like it. It was much too funky and not enough rock for him. I was a bit on the fence. I kind of enjoyed it. But it obviously wasn't the rock that I would have been creating. And I remember saying, 'Look, it needs a little bit of something a bit more dirty on it […] So I started playing these little bits of the more grungy guitar. I don't think the word 'grungy' existed in those days. But the distorted guitar is obviously me, and that punctuates it and gives it another dimension, takes it to a slightly more rocky place.‘²⁰

‘[‘Another One Bites The Dust’] is a very important part of the Queen canon. It's perhaps our biggest song ever in terms of sales. I'm not sure, but it must be close.’²¹

Roger Taylor:

‘Michael [Jackson] came to several shows I think at the Forum in LA, and he loved Freddie. And he kept saying, ‘You guys, you got to put that song out!’ […] And I wasn’t particularly enamoured with it, so I said ‘No, you’re kidding, that’s never a single.’’²²

John Deacon:

‘I’d always wanted to do something a little bit more, that was more disco, which was very uncool at the time.’²³

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Disco might have been ‘uncool’ but ‘Another One Bites The Dust’’s disco-rock fusion still afforded Queen their best-selling single in the US while ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ is no.5 on the band’s best selling singles on the UK chart.

What do you think of Queen’s The Game? Do you have a favourite song from the album?

The Round-Up (14th-20th July)

15th July 1972: Elton John started a 5-week run at no.1 on the US Album Chart with his 5th studio album, Honky Château

Honky Château was described by Rolling Stone’s Jon Landau as a ‘rich, warm, satisfying album that stands head and shoulders above the morass of current releases.’²⁴ The album’s biggest hit was ‘Rocket Man’ with lyrics written by Elton John’s long-time songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin, and music composed by John himself.

In 2016, Taupin talked about the influence behind the song…

‘People identify it, unfortunately, with David Bowie’s Space Oddity. It actually wasn’t inspired by that at all; it was actually inspired by a story by Ray Bradbury, from his book of science fiction short stories called The Illustrated Man. In that book, there was a story called The Rocket Man, which was about how astronauts in the future would become a sort of everyday job. So, I kind of took that idea and ran with that.’²⁵

18th July 1988: Singer, Songwriter, Nico, died

Christa Pavlovski, otherwise known by her stage name, Nico, was a German singer, songwriter, actress and model, best known for her work with Andy Warhol and singing lead vocals on three songs from the Velvet Underground’s debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967): ‘Femme Fatale’, ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’, and ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’. Nico released her solo debut album, Chelsea Girl, in the same year as The Velvet Underground’s debut (two songs from Chelsea Girl were later used in Wes Anderson’s 2001 film, The Royal Tennenbaums). Nico released six solo studio albums in total with 1970’s Desertshore described as a favourite by both Bjork and The Cure’s Robert Smith.

Nico died on holiday in Ibiza on 18th July 1988, aged 49, after hitting her head, falling from her bicycle. She was described by the LA Times as ‘the wide-eyed beauty of rock music and Andy Warhol fame’²⁶ while The Times of London said ‘[h]er long blond hair, pronounced cheekbones, imposing height and low, heavily accented voice quickly made her one of the new decade’s most striking figures.’²⁷

18th July 1998: The Beastie Boys went to no.1 on the UK Album Chart with Hello Nasty

Described by Entertainment Weekly’s David Browne as ‘a sonic smorgasbord in which the Beasties gorge themselves with reckless abandon’²⁸, the Beastie Boys’ 5th studio album, Hello Nasty, adopts a range of musical styles into their hip-hop sound from ballads and lounge music to dub and electronic pastiche.

Discussing what made the band integrate other musical styles into Hello Nasty, Mike D reflected…

‘We spent so much time in the studio that we weren't in touch with the things that happened around us, not what's going on in the music scene and not what other people think about our music. We didn't even hear other opinions; we were rather reclusive. You know, there is nothing planned on the album, we didn't plan anything. All you hear are different sounds, sounds we experimented with, nothing else. Maybe that's our problem: we were so far removed from everything, it was like being underground, really underground, like in a hole in the ground.’²⁹

20th July 1965: Bob Dylan released ‘Like A Rolling Stone’

In a somewhat grim, yet inspiring description of how ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ came about, Dylan told CBC Radio’s Marvin Bronstein…

‘this long piece of vomit, 20 pages long, and out of it I took 'Like a Rolling Stone' and made it as a single. And I'd never written anything like that before and it suddenly came to me that was what I should do ... After writing that I wasn't interested in writing a novel, or a play. I just had too much, I want to write songs.’³⁰

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Some music-related quotes from musicians born this week:

Woody Guthrie (born 14th July 1912)

‘I like to write about wherever I happen to be.’

Dan Smith, Bastille (born 14th July 1986)

‘I’m not interested in writing overtly autobiographical songs. I would rather explore interesting stories. I like the idea of songs being evocative and distinctive, so I have in my mind the atmosphere that a film could avoid. I like to think of them existing in their own little world.’

Ian Curtis, Joy Division (born 15th July 1956)

‘We play the music we want to play and we play the places we want to play. I’d hate to be on the usual record company where you get an album out and you do a tour, and you do all the Odeons and all the this that and the others. I couldn’t just do that at all.’

Brian May (born 19th July 1947)

‘The guitar has a kind of grit and excitement possessed by nothing else.’

Carlos Santana (born 20th July 1947)

’There’s a melody in everything. And once you find the melody, then you connect immediately with the heart. Because sometimes English or Spanish, Swahili or any language gets in the way. But nothing penetrates the heart faster than the melody.’

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2. https://web.archive.org/web/20201206090348/https://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4148136-dis-meets-imogen-heap--i-wanted-to-live-in-the-moment

3. https://www.antimusic.com/morley/05/ImogenHeap.shtml

4. https://www.antimusic.com/morley/05/ImogenHeap.shtml

5. https://www.antimusic.com/morley/05/ImogenHeap.shtml

6. https://aurgasm.us/2005/10/aurgasm-interview-imogen-heap/

7. http://yellowdeuce.com/jb10.html#33

8. http://yellowdeuce.com/jb10.html#33

9. https://www.antimusic.com/morley/05/ImogenHeap.shtml

10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak_for_Yourself#Personnel

11. https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-game-mw0000650663

12. https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/reinhold-mack-queen-freddie-mercury-interview/

13. https://tapeop.com/interviews/81/reinhold-mack

14. https://queenarchives.com/qa/05-02-1981-melody-maker/

15.

16. https://www.guitarplayer.com/music/that-rhythm-guitar-is-freddie-i-dont-think-i-played-any-of-that-brian-may-said-freddie-mercury-edged-him-out-of-this-chart-topping-queen-hit

17. https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/brian-may-reveals-the-magic-behind-his-recording-studio-wizardry

18. https://www.guitarplayer.com/music/that-rhythm-guitar-is-freddie-i-dont-think-i-played-any-of-that-brian-may-said-freddie-mercury-edged-him-out-of-this-chart-topping-queen-hit

19. https://tapeop.com/interviews/81/reinhold-mack

20. https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/freddie_mercury_adored_it_but_roger_taylor_didnt_want_it_on_the_album_brian_may_on_complex_legacy_of_queens_best-selling_single.html

21. https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/freddie_mercury_adored_it_but_roger_taylor_didnt_want_it_on_the_album_brian_may_on_complex_legacy_of_queens_best-selling_single.html

22. https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/music/1466321/Roger-Taylor-Michael-Jackson-Freddie-Mercury-Queen-Another-One-Bites-The-Dust

23. https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/music/1466321/Roger-Taylor-Michael-Jackson-Freddie-Mercury-Queen-Another-One-Bites-The-Dust

24. https://web.archive.org/web/20070319192154/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/eltonjohn/albums/album/90365/review/6068350/honky_chateau

25. https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-story-behind-elton-john-song-rocket-man/

26. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-07-23-mn-6091-story.html

27. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-07-23-mn-6091-story.html

28. https://ew.com/article/1998/07/13/hello-nasty/

29. https://web.archive.org/web/20120204202410/http://www.nyrock.com/interviews/beastieboys_int.htm

30. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_a_Rolling_Stone