This time, however, things are different. Derulo’s rendition is more popular than the original: Titled “Watcha Say,” it infuses a sing-song-y poppiness that, to my older, wiser ears, feels like a corruption of the a capella original - a sign that I’m graduating from teenage angst into young adult nihilism.Įven as an homage to the tiny, explosive teen feelings I once clenched so tightly, Derulo’s remix doesn’t quite do it for me - the feelings slowly dissipate like an illness that’s no longer symptomatic.įast forward to 2020 and, like a phoenix I wish were dead, the song emerges in Hulu’s latest hit TV drama, Normal People, based on Sally Rooney’s critically acclaimed novel of the same name. This time the song is packaged to serve a younger generation of millennial teen angst during the infamous thanksgiving dinner scene in the generation’s latest prestige teen drama, Gossip Girl. I’m in college now, and Heap’s vocals are remixed by American singer-songwriter Jason Derulo. I’m not, though, ready yet to let go (the title of another Heap classic, naturally).Īnother two years go by. My subconscious implores me to wonder, if a scene with that song is so easily mocked, then are my explosive teenage emotions ridiculous, too? scene is parodied by Andy Samberg and the Lonely Island Guys in an SNL digital short that also uses “Hide and Seek,” confirming that you can inject cheap, angst-y drama into anything merely by playing Heap’s song over the top.īut it’s too late - for me, the damage has been sustained. , it’s all Heap - the tangible sound of gloriously, self-indulgently wallowing in misery. Or the following night when I agonize over three effusively mushy text messages I never actually send.īefore “Hide and Seek,” pure teenage angst was scored by Postal Service ’s “This Place Is a Prison,” but after that episode of The O.C. Like that time my crush decided it would be better if we stayed friends after spending the night kissing on her backyard trampoline inside the gated community. Burdened with the anvil that is low-stakes, serialized teen fiction, the song quickly transforms into a hymn, one where I can repeat the first few lines when life gets first-world, suburban tough. In that moment, and for several subsequent moments, I begin to associate feelings with Heap’s keyboard-controlled, digitally harmonized vibrato. Y’know, the sort of spectacle that pulls at the heartstrings of affluent suburban teens who want to believe their lives are also full of exotic soap opera melodrama.īut it’s that gunshot that lingers - punctuated by Heap’s computer-assisted vocals, her voice the acoustic incarnation of a teen, drowning in emotion. The scene itself is standard daytime stuff: The show’s blond protagonist is about to be killed by his brother until his on-again-off-again girlfriend shows up to the motel where the two brothers are brawling, just in time to shoot her boyfriend’s brother in the back before he can smash her boyfriend’s face with a rotary phone. , handed an essential moment in the teen drama television oeuvre. Millennials everywhere, but especially privileged suburban teens like myself are, thanks to the creators of The O.C. I’m in the depths of the doldrums of adolescence, misanthropy and the sort of unrequited high school love that feels like it could be happily ever after, if only she notices me. Like someone trying to remember a quote they might eventually tattoo on their inner bicep and then later regret, I mouth the lyrics back: “Where are we? What the hell is going on?” Then Imogen Heap ’s “Hide and Seek” pours into my ears through my headphones: “Where are we? What the hell is going on?” I can’t remember which abyss, I just know it’s deep and I’m staring, peering, forcing myself to feel everything by way of not actually feeling anything.
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