Friday, May 4th 2007
Hide and Seek
Last January, through a strange chain of events not important to this story, I found myself on somebody’s MySpace page *gasp* that featured Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap. I was already a HUGE fan of Frou Frou at the time and even before I knew who the artist was I was completely taken by the sweet longing and thoroughly unconventional sound of the track.
The boyfriend I broke up with the month prior was also a huge Frou Frou fan and even though I had no desire to grease the lines of communication with him I sent him the song in an e-mail with the subject “In Case You Don’t Already Have This”. He replied to let me know he really liked the song and went on with a very nice speech about wishing me well in all that I do, etc. It was extremely difficult for me to let it end there, but these things happen and that isn’t what this is about anyway.
Several months earlier, America was exposed to this song at the climax of the season two finale of The OC – a show I never watch and pretend doesn’t exist.
In the 24 hours that followed that episode Hide and Seek was purchased from the iTunes store 20,000 times.
In the months that followed I could not get enough of this song or many of the other amazing tracks from the Speak For Yourself album. Then I was blown away when Mia Michaels choreographed the group dance to Hide and Seek for the eighth episode of So You Think You Can Dance last summer; the only episode I was unable to watch live.
Two weeks ago during a disorienting period of inactivity at the office I came across a blog entry about a remix of Hide and Seek with an audio sample. It was actually good, which surprised me because the nature of the track seemed to defy adherence to a dance beat (something that was clearly illustrated in the numerous other attempts I have heard). I found the site of the DJ responsible for the remix and found it was available for download. Result!
Here is a sample of the original version taken over by the outstanding remix by Randy Boyer.
