Imogen Heap
photo: duk3l1xon · cc by-sa 4.0 ↗A classically trained multi-instrumentalist from Essex, Imogen Heap built her name as one half of Frou Frou before going solo with 2005's Speak for Yourself, an album she wrote, performed, and produced almost entirely alone. Her stacked vocal harmonies, glitchy electronics, and theatrical, diaristic songwriting made her a cult favorite years before mainstream pop caught up to the sound — and made her, by Ariana Grande's own account, a formative influence rather than just a peer.
Critics heard Heap's 1998 debut I Megaphone as squarely in the lineage of theatrical British art-pop singer-songwriters, with Kate Bush named as the most direct point of comparison for its swooping, dramatic vocal delivery.
listen forWuthering Heights is all swoop and drama, a voice used like an instrument that can leap registers mid-line; Heap's Hide and Seek does the same thing with a vocoder standing in for the strings.
Amos was another of the confessional, piano-driven singer-songwriters critics reached for when describing Heap's early solo work — the intimate, unguarded first-person voice over spare, idiosyncratic arrangements.
listen forCornflake Girl has that close, conversational-but-strange delivery over a hooky but off-kilter arrangement; Heap's Just for Now sits in the same intimate, piano-and-voice space.
Morissette rounds out the mid-'90s cohort of confessional women singer-songwriters critics compared Heap's debut to — the raw, diaristic lyric-writing and a voice that breaks and cracks on purpose for emotional effect.
listen forIronic rides on that conversational, almost-talking-then-suddenly-belting delivery; Heap's Speeding Cars uses the same trick, letting the vocal crack open right when the lyric turns confessional.