Hot 100 First-Timers: Imogen Heap Scores First Entry Ever, Thanks to 2005 Song ‘Headlock’

Imogen Heap has been releasing music for nearly three decades, winning two Grammy Awards and influencing a generation of music stars. As of this week, she’s officially a Billboard Hot 100-charting artist, thanks to a streaming revival for her 2005 song “Headlock.”

The song, which appears on Heap’s 2005 sophomore LP, Speak for Yourself, debuts at No. 100 on the Hot 100 (dated Jan. 25) almost entirely from its streaming sum: 5.9 million official U.S. streams (up 11%) in the Jan. 10-16 tracking week, according to Luminate. It also holds at its No. 10 high on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart.

The song has been generating renewed interest in recent weeks thanks to a viral social media trend involving the psychological horror thriller video game Mouthwashing. Fans use the song to soundtrack various edited compilations of gameplay footage. The track has been particularly active on TikTok, where it has soundtracked over 135,000 clips on the platform to date.

Speak for Yourself became Heap’s breakthrough album. The set also includes “Hide and Seek,” which gained traction at the time via its sync in the climactic scene in the second-season finale of The O.C., in which Marissa Cooper shoots Trey Atwood. The scene and the song were later parodied in a 2007 Saturday Night Live digital short by the Lonely Island, helping broaden its reach and turning the song into a meme. The cut was later used in other dramatic scenes in Degrassi: The Next Generation and Normal People. The song’s familiar bridge (“mmm, whatcha say”) culminated in a prominent sample – as the main hook – in Jason Derulo’s 2009 hit “Whatcha Say,” which spent a week at No. 1 on the Hot 100; Heap is credited as a co-writer on Derulo’s song.

Though “Headlock” is now Heap’s first charting Hot 100 hit as a recording artist, the U.K. native has earned one additional entry on the survey as both a co-writer and co-producer: Taylor Swift’s “Clean (Taylor’s Version),” from her 1989 (Taylor’s Version), reached No. 30 in November 2023. Heap also co-wrote and co-produced the original “Clean,” from Swift’s 1989 in 2014, but that version didn’t hit the Hot 100.

Speak for Yourself debuted at No. 182 on the Billboard 200 in November 2005. It climbed to No. 145 the following February, fueled in part by the popularity of “Hide and Seek.” The album’s influence expanded to its track “Just for Now.” The song was sampled on A$AP Rocky’s “I Smoked Away My Brain (I’m Gods x Demons Mashup),” featuring Heap and Clams Casino, in 2018. The collab hit No. 35 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.

Heap has charted two additional albums on the Billboard 200 in her career: Ellipse – which soared to No. 5 in 2009 – and Sparks (No. 21; 2014). Her instrumental cast recording The Music of Harry Potter and The Cursed Child: Parts One and Two reached No. 2 on the Classical Albums chart in 2018.

“Headlock” isn’t Heap’s only song currently charting on Billboard’s lists: She also appears as half of electronic duo Frou Frou (with Guy Sigsworth) on the pair’s “A New Kind of Love,” which ranks at No. 35 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, a week after reaching No. 30.

This article was originally published by Billboard U.S.