Suede decided to move on from Ed Buller as their producer. After demoing 15 songs with three different producers, wanting to go in a more produced, electronic-sounding direction, the group chose Steve Osborne to produce the album. Osborne had previously worked with the band Happy Mondays. According to Anderson, "Head Music" was Suede's most experimental album, and Osborne's role played into the group's experimentation, "Steve was responsible for a hell of a lot of this album's sound. We chose him first of all because he did this fucking brilliant job on 'Savoir Faire'... It just sounded really exciting and unusual." Osborne's involvement sparked rumours of Suede going in a dancier direction, which the band denied. Osman insisted it is “groovier” than their previous songs with some using only one or two chords, while Anderson said: “The last thing we wanted to do was some obvious attempt to make a dance album, because it would have sounded like shit.”