How Social Media Gave Imogen Heap’s “Headlock” a New Life

Imogen Heap’s 2005 critically acclaimed album Speak for Yourself has enjoyed a rebirth many times since its release.

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Thanks to interpretations by Ariana Grande and Jason Derulo, reimagined tracks have introduced the Heap to a new generation of fans. Derulo sampled “Hide and Seek” on his 2009 hit “Whatcha Say.” On her fourth album Sweetener, Grande covered “Goodnight n Go,” rotating the original’s skittering production toward blissful pop.

But this year, Billboard reported that “Headlock” began trending on TikTok. The unlikely resurgence happened when fans used Heap’s song as the soundtrack to compilation clips of the video game Mouthwashing.

Now, 20 years after the song’s release, Heap makes her first-ever entry onto Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart. Meanwhile, TikTok users have recycled “Headlock” more than 135,000 times. And it’s also received more than 120 million streams on Spotify at the time of this writing.

Future Tense

But Heap has always sounded like the future. “Headlock” could be a conversation with technology. The wry phrases come across like what you’d receive following a prompt—a series of inputs and outputs. It describes being monitored by machines, followed by an affirmation: You’ve still got it.

Distant flickerings, greener scenery
This weather’s bringing it all back again
Great adventures, faces, and condensation
I’m going outside to take it all in

Perhaps it’s predictive of future relationships with artificial intelligence. Another area of curiosity for Heap.

She’s currently working on an AI assistant called Mogen, whom (or what) she hopes will be a future collaborator. In an ongoing project, she’s collecting data on herself to train it to replicate her voice.

Mogen began life on Heap’s fan app, giving diehards called Heapsters access to the artist’s thoughts on varying topics. Though the initial goal was to document a “living autobiography,” she also wants it to become an “all-knowing connection” to ease her creative workflow.

Do It Yourself

In 2003, the English singer self-funded and produced Speak for Yourself, her second studio album. “Headlock” was the album’s third single, but the digital a cappella of “Hide and Seek” stood apart then like an alien observing human malaise. It was later featured in The O.C. before being parodied on Saturday Night Live.

However, once Derulo sampled the track, he returned it to Earth. His R&B take reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2009. Revisiting Speak for Yourself amid its rebirth, if you are looking for the ghost in the machine, what’s lurking beneath Heap’s tech-curious music is great pop songwriting.

Her version of electropop sounded like the future in 2005. Today, it exists in a timeless loop on TikTok.

You’re walking, you’ve been hiding
And you look half dead half the time
Monitoring you, like machines do
You’ve still got it, I’m just keeping an eye

Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images