Jacob Collier's debut album In My Room was recorded entirely in his family's back room at home, yet it won two Grammy Awards. The multi-instrumentalist, now 27, created the album at age 21 using a laptop, a Casio keyboard, and manual looping of instruments and vocal harmonies.
From YouTube to Quincy Jones
Collier grew up as part of the YouTube generation, filming himself performing Stevie Wonder covers like Isn't She Lovely and Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing in his family home. His videos featured multiple layered vocal parts and various instruments. One of these videos caught the attention of legendary producer Quincy Jones, who emailed Collier saying: 'Hey man, what's going on with these chords? I need to have a word with you.' Jones signed Collier to his label and became a mentor.
Creating the album at home
Collier made In My Room in three months. He explains that while Stevie Wonder and Prince played all instruments on their albums in professional studios, there was no instruction manual for doing it at home. He used his laptop to loop instruments and layer vocal harmonies manually. The album includes covers of Stevie Wonder's You and I and Brian Wilson's In My Room, as well as a rendition of The Flintstones theme. Original songs like In the Real Early Morning started as a poem. Collier aimed for each track to be distinct, using gentle piano, guitar, and fuller orchestration.
Mixing with help from legends
Balance engineer Ben Bloomberg handled the mixing in Los Angeles. He met Collier after seeing his rearrangement of Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing on Facebook. Bloomberg, then a PhD student at MIT, created a vocal harmoniser that allowed Collier to become his own backing choir live. For the final mix, Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock visited the studio until 5am, becoming the first to hear the finished record. Bloomberg discovered that Hans Zimmer's studio in LA had an old cinema console with 512 inputs, necessary for the album's many tracks.
Grammy success and legacy
In My Room won two Grammys. Collier says he didn't make the album to become a star or for money; it was simply a snapshot of his 21-year-old self and the things he cared about. A 10th anniversary edition of In My Room was released on 1 July, with a performance at Ronnie Scott's in London on the same day.
