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Apr 24

The Moment I Said It

Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 in Music, Personal, Thoughts

I spent a good portion of today annoyed. I’ve been annoyed by lots of different things, some important, some not important. Non of these things really matter, not in the long run any way. They just seem important at the time.

I’ve said it time and time again and will probably continue to do so, but I love how listening to music can change your mood. There’s nothing else like it as far as I’m concerned…you put on an album you love and it can lift all types of doom and gloom and makes things seem so much better in just a few short minutes.

Right now, and for the last few minutes I’ve been listening to the instrumental version of Imogen Heap’s ‘Speak For Yourself’ album – I’m fortunate to have this as it’s not really widely available. It’s a truly beautiful album…and whilst a BIG part of the album is Immi’s wonderful voice, it’s also an amazing piece of music without her voice. So many intricacies that you just don’t notice on the normal version because of the layers of vocals that hide things. ‘Just For Now’ is a masterpiece, and the strings and orchestral parts throughout the album are nothing short of stunning. I’ve known this for a long time, but Immi is a genius. She’s also one of the kindest people I know to.

Today I received an email via her website from dance tutor – one of the tutor’s young students has recently been killed in a car crash – the student was apparently a big fan of Imogen’s and performed several dance routines to her songs. The tutor emailed us asking if there was any way she could get hold of an instrumental version of the song ‘The Moment I Said It’….apparently this song was a favourite of the student, and her family had asked that a video of the student’s solo be played at the recital to honour her, with the instrumental version of the song as the music.

Now, Imogen has had a bit of a rough ride in the past few days, but despite all of what she’s had going on personally, she still responded very quickly and asked me to send the track. Whilst this may not seem like a big deal, it’s just another little example of what a special and caring kind of person Immi is. Someone I’m glad to call a friend. Bless you Immi x

Jan 29

Imogen Heap ‘more popular than UK Prime Minister’

Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 in Culture, Media, Music, Technogeekery, Work

Recognition is always nice, and working for myself whilst I am often thanked by the people I work with/for, it’s not as if I get an annual review or ‘employee of the month’ award, so I was very chuffed with myself when I stumbled upon an article about ‘QDOS’, a system that measures an individual’s ‘digital status’ in the UK.

According to a recent QDOS report 9 out of 10 of the most digitally prolific personalities in the UK are musicians, and whilst you’d be forgiven for assuming someone such as Bono would be number one, you’d also be wrong! According to QDOS, the number one most digitally prolific person in the UK is non other than Imogen Heap!

(Tony Blair and Gordon Brown came in at numbers 12 and 25 respectively).

A QDOS score is comprised of four main components – popularity, impact, activity and individuality. Each component is scored separately and these are combined to form a total QDOS score. Popularity measures the number of people one engages with online and the size of their personal network, impact is based on the number of people who listen/read/view/comment when an individual blogs/posts online, activity comprises the total of one’s digital activity including shopping, blogging, banking, chatting etc, and individuality is how unique one is in the digital world based on their name, age and lifestyle.

So as Imogen’s webmaster and gate-keeper of all things online, I am patting myself on the back for a job well done! Although, I’m not the only person that deserves recognition here – there’s Imogen herself for always being up for trying something new, Mark Wood (Imogen’s manager) for letting us try things and always supporting us, and Tiffany ‘the axemaiden’ Le, our ‘myspace housekeeper’ who does a superb job managing Imogen’s MySpace profile and it’s 300,000+ friends.

Having spent the last 5 or 6 years working with Imogen and it’s great to see our efforts being recognised – I’m looking forward to retaining our ‘title’ in 2008!

Read the full article here.