A few days into the tour to promote her new album Ellipse, British singer Imogen Heap is a little worn around the edges. She stands in the wide lobby of a building in downtown Toronto just off the heels of yet another interview, evidence of a long day etched into her face.
At six feet tall, Heap is an overgrown pixie. Her rust-coloured hair has been swept into a tangled up-do and brightly-coloured clips that keep stray strands off her face revealing tired, brown eyes. She's sporting a black dress – the blank canvas for a silk scarf splashed with violet, blue, green and scarlet flowers. Her long, lean legs are covered in dazzling, black-sequined leggings and are punctuated with a pair of electric-blue ballet flats. But even this loud an outfit can't mask her fatigue.
“Oh. There's going to be a photo?” she asks with a tiny yawn, noticing a photographer fiddling with his gear.
Imogen Heap.
I have lots and lots of ideas and that is maybe the slight drawback for Twitter for me is that I can come up with an idea, say it, and it happens.
A thick, silver bangle slides down her wrist as she touches her face self-consciously, before grabbing her make-up bag and disappearing into a washroom.
It may take a few more records yet for Heap to get used to the gruelling promo schedule of a music artist, but she is an old pro at putting herself on display for mass audiences online. Since the emergence of Napster a decade ago, record label executives have waged war against online file-sharing. Heap, whose two previous solo albums filled with airy vocals and synthesized instrumentals have sold half a million copies, has quietly created an ingenious model that has let her thrive online – and it came from a completely genuine place.
After a few minutes of primping, she returns from the washroom, her lips a deeper shade of rose from a fresh coat of shimmering gloss. As she begins talking about her connection with fans –through Twitter, YouTube, MySpace and Flickr – her energy level rises.
She's noticed how some other artists, at the behest of their labels, have awkwardly waded into social networks, trying to figure out how Twitter might lead to record sales. But Heap says people can smell phony motivations a mile away.
“‘Oh, I think you should set up a Twitter account and get in there with your fans,'” Heap says mockingly, through clenched teeth and affecting a stuffy American accent. “Probably the reason why they're not having all kinds of success is because they don't live it. It's something I live every day.”
One only needs to look at the numbers. As of Monday, she had more than 360,000 friends on MySpace and more than 88,000 fans on Facebook. With more than 960,000 followers, she is the 117th-most-followed user on Twitter. Even through the rush of stops through this promo tour, she dispatches several tweets every day.
Two years ago Heap launched a video blog to document the creation of Ellipse . Rather than slick, expertly edited clips filmed in an L.A. studio, Heap's 40 homemade videos are intimate, fireside chats filmed in her London house. In one video she trills on about how she doesn't like the piano in the background of one track on her album, in another, she gleefully announces she's passed her driving test.
“Not having a producer or anyone to work with, you're just left with your thoughts which can be a loud, noisy thing sometimes. So just kind of expelling those and directing those to the camera, the process of that helped me focus it,” she says.
Through Twitter and YouTube comments, fans gave her feedback on songs in progress, helping her craft Ellips e from start to finish.
Even when the album was complete, Heap wasn't done with the creative consultation. She held a contest over Flickr to find fan photographs that she could use as album artwork. She even offered a small cash prize.
Perhaps most impressive, Heap put out the call through Twitter for fans to write her biography – 140 characters at a time. She received more than 1,500 submissions and stitched 81 of those together to create the final, footnoted oeuvre.
“I have lots and lots of ideas and that is maybe the slight drawback for Twitter for me is that I can come up with an idea, say it, and it happens,” she says with a nervous chuckle.
When a leaked copy of Ellipse was listed on eBay in early July, more than a month before its release, Heap summoned her troops. With just a few tweets expressing her annoyance, she urged fans to make the album “the most bidded on item ever on eBay,” which she hoped would catch eBay's attention and lead to its removal. Fans drove the price up well into the millions and Heap herself topped it off with a £10-million (about $18-million) bid before eBay removed the listing. Mission accomplished.
Heap acknowledges Ellipse will be downloaded – “Actually, I know it's happening right now,” she says – but has some optimism that the majority of her fans will find a reason to pay for it. And that idea may not be so far-fetched – with Heap opening up channels to her fans through Twitter, YouTube and Flickr in the last two years, its their album as much as her own.
