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It's the fall of 1998 in a suburb west of London.

An international pop icon sits on a grimy sofa in a small recording studio.

The light is low and there's a faint scent of stale beer and cigarettes.

She drinks tap water out of a glass she filled herself.

This isn't her normal scene, but her recording career isn't a major slump.

She hasn't had a number one song in 25 years.

Her last album, A Collection of Power Ballads, went nowhere.

She needs a hit.

The song she's been working on is good, everyone's told her that.

But deep down she knows it's still missing that special something.

The thing that can take her song from good to great.

Which is why she's here.

The two producers who run the studio, Mark Taylor and Brian Rawling, are still wet behind

the ears, but they're willing to experiment.

She watches them hunch over the mixing board, setting up.

Mark did you add that effect I liked off the Roachford CD, that vocal thing?

Yep, and I think we found a way to do something similar.

It's different, but how different?

Well, let's see what you think.

Taylor swallows hard and spins back to the mixing board.

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