I love pop music

In the past few weeks, my music has been controlled by what I'm doing at work. Normally my commute to work is podcasts- music, talk, daily news. At work, when the coworkers get a little too exuberant in their conference calls, the headphones go on and the music blocks out some noise and hopefully I can get back into the flow of debugging or coding. The playlist of choice is a mostly instrumental mix of post rock, trip hop, and hip hop to provide a background for coding.

On my way home, I'm unwinding with just about any kind of music. But when there's extra stress like in the past few weeks, I need something to really help me take my mind off of work and get my brain switched off. Hello, pop music!

Well, sort of pop music. I put Imogen Heap and Utada Hikaru into a playlist and I've been pleased with the results. Imogen Heap provides the vocals for the group Frou Frou and she has a handful of solo albums herself. You might remember Frou Frou from the Garden State soundtrack. And Utada Hikaru I started listening to after ernie's post, of course, and I discovered I really like her. (Dan enjoys reminding me that I share this in common with many teenaged Japanese school girls).

While I was in Taiwan I bought two of Utada Hikaru's albums- Deep River and Ultra Blue. Since Utada has already been posted about, I'll write a little about Imogen Heap.

Imogen Heap is from Essex, England and is a classically trained musician. She started writing songs at a young age and soon turned her attention towards alternative pop rock and electronica. She taught herself sequencing and production and signed a record contract at 17. Her debut album "I, Meagaphone" was released in 1998.

In 2002, Frou Frou released the album "Details". Their song "Let Go" is on the Garden State soundtrack and is one that caught Grace's ear when it played during the credits. Heap's second solo album "Speak For Yourself" was released in 2005 in the UK. Songs from the album were featured on The O.C. After her album was released internationally she appeared on a couple of US late night talk shows. Heap performs by herself on stage singing and playing the guitar over music controlled by an Apple laptop.

What does her music sound like? It's singer-songwriter with plenty of layers of various instruments and electronic music. It's pop-rock but not overly sugary sounding. Have a listen:

Speak For Yourself - Daylight Robbery
Speak For Yourself - Goodnight and Go
Details - Let Go