Songwriter on Reclaiming Adele, Rihanna's Unwanted Hits

February 2, 2016 10:04 AM

Sia Furler's forthcoming album, This Is Acting, has a novel concept: It's full of songs rejected by A-list artists
posted by josher71 (30 comments total)

This was how Jessie J started too, right?

Er, was Jessie J a thing in the states
posted by ominous_paws at 10:22 AM on February 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

jessie j was totally a thing and she just did a great opener to the live showing of grease.
posted by nadawi at 10:28 AM on February 2, 2016

Yeah, "Bang Bang" was a moderate success for her over here.
posted by offalark at 10:30 AM on February 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I love this interview. She is so ... honest. And if you haven't watched the PS22 Chorus sing TiTaNiuM you need to do that! The soloist, Alicea is amazing. What is it about pop songs sung by a kids choir that rips my heart out? IDK, but it never fails. SIA rules.
posted by pjsky at 10:33 AM on February 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

I *heart* Sia - I've been listening to her stuff for at least 7 years and am really happy to see her getting the recognition and attention she deserves. I feel bad that her stagefright is so acute that she rarely performs (although the outsize wigs seem to be helping), but am really happy that the songwriting angle is working out so well for her. Would love to see her live - love her voice.
posted by widdershins at 10:37 AM on February 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

This, I believe, is exactly the formula that Bruno Mars used to fuel his own shooting stardom. It's good to see some singer/songwriters getting their moment in the spotlight over the spaghetti sauce-splattered pop machine.
posted by carsonb at 10:59 AM on February 2, 2016

I have many feels about this! I think I've stated before what a big deal she is to me, but... talk about a mysterious correction:

That's what was interesting about writing with Katy Perry because, again, it's her voice at the end of the day. She's also quite dominant, and she's extremely analytical. I actually quit within the first hour of our first session. I was like, "Can we be friends if this doesn't work? Like our whole songwriting dynamic?" [Editor's Note: Rolling Stone has changed this sentence to reflect a correction from Sia]

posted by psoas at 11:07 AM on February 2, 2016

I've been enjoying the album a lot--you can hear how Adele would have sung Alive, but hearing Sia belt it out, it sounds more searing and raw

I didn't know that was possible. Listening now.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:49 AM on February 2, 2016

Also, the video is amazing and continues her pattern of having a stand-in. It's a young Japanese girl martial artist doing kata.

Good lord, that tiny child looks like she could fuck your shit up. (You general, though lbr, probably all of us would lose in a fight with this kid.) And yeah, I can definitely hear "this is an Adele song" in Alive, but Sia brings a very affecting rawness to the song.

I also still adore the Elastic Heart video, which if you still haven't watched yet for "lol Shia LaBeouf" reasons, I suggest you reconsider. It's a tremendous piece, and LaBeouf and Ziegler's performances in it are remarkable.
posted by yasaman at 12:26 PM on February 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

I've been listening to this album a ton over the past couple days. It's really, really good. Perhaps my favorite of her albums so far.
posted by the turtle's teeth at 12:38 PM on February 2, 2016

Sia says, "I probably get 20 or 30 tracks a week from my producer friends who are hoping that I'll write lyrics and melody on top of them."

If Sia is writing the lyrics and the melody, what is it she is receiving from these other people?
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 1:11 PM on February 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Beats, bass, and chord progression. Maybe some background stuff.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:18 PM on February 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

talk about a mysterious correction

Thanks to archive.org, here's the original text:

I was like, "Can we both agree this doesn't work? Like our whole songwriting dynamic?"

And here is the current corrected version:

I was like, "Can we be friends if this doesn't work? Like our whole songwriting dynamic?"

Sounds to me like someone made an error in transcribing the audio and Sia wanted it corrected because it made her sound a little more negative about the experience, but that's just my guess as someone who does a lot of interviews for a living.
posted by Mothlight at 1:28 PM on February 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

I impressed myself one night driving along listening to pop radio with my son. We were listening to "Diamonds" and I said "Every song on pop radio sounds like it was written by the same person. This song could totally have been written by whoever wrote 'Titanium.'" Can't fool me! (I also guessed a bunch of Jim Steinman back in the day but that's not very hard.)
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 1:29 PM on February 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

With the exception of the Six Feet Under song and some of the material she's written for other people, I have a hard time getting past her personality to appreciate her work. She's clearly talented, but the infantile quality of her persona (the sleeve art for Some People Have Real Problems, for example, and her Twitter bio) skeeve me out on an intangible level. I understand that you have to set yourself apart from the pack to make an impact today, but why she chose that personality is beyond me.
posted by pxe2000 at 1:34 PM on February 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

If Sia is writing the lyrics and the melody, what is it she is receiving from these other people?

To expand on my previous answer, she's probably receiving essentially a karaoke backing track.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:38 PM on February 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sia - an inspiration to speech language pathologists worldwide.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:38 PM on February 2, 2016

> I also guessed a bunch of Jim Steinman back in the day but that's not very hard.

Years ago I was at work when a song I'd not heard before came on the radio. The longer I listened, the more I was convinced it was a Jim Steinman song -- it had the same cheesy, bombastic feel of both of Meatloaf's "Bat out of Hell" albums (and I use "cheesy" and "bombastic" with love; I'm an unapologetic fan of the Meatloaf/Steinman combination), but it wasn't Meatloaf singing.

On a whim, I called the radio station. "This song you just played -- I'd love to know who it is, but before you tell me that, could you look and see if it was written and/or produced by Jim Steinman?" The DJ seemed a little bemused by the request, but agreed…and then was surprised to let me know that I was right, it was definitely Jim Steinman's work.

"Nice! Okay, now who's the performer?"

And that's how I reluctantly realized that I was enjoying none other than Celine Dion's "It's All Coming Back to Me Now", much to the chagrin of my black-clad, goth/industrial core.

(More on-topic: I don't know Sia at all, and none of the song titles rang a bell, but the interview was a fascinating window into the creative work behind modern pop. And I've got a bunch of YouTube links to follow. Thanks!)
posted by djwudi at 3:04 PM on February 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

So, this may sound weird (and part of me almost thinks I imagined it) but I saw Sia a number of years ago at the Outside Lands festival in SF, and she was pretty ... normal? Like, wasn't wearing a wig or performing with a stand-in or anything. Anybody know what happened?
posted by panama joe at 4:09 PM on February 2, 2016

"Damn. Here we go again. Common passed on this beat; I made it to a jam."
posted by eustacescrubb at 5:19 PM on February 2, 2016

I feel bad that her stagefright is so acute that she rarely performs

My understanding is that it's not performance anxiety per se, but rather a desire to avoid fame. She commented in an interview recently that during a shopping trip at Target, "Chandelier" was playing in the store but no one recognized her at all. And she was thrilled.

I saw Sia a number of years ago at the Outside Lands festival in SF, and she was pretty ... normal?

Hey, I was there too! What a great set! That was before she was really well-known, and I think the stuff recently has been what I just mentioned: while she's very happy her music is finding a large audience, she really wants to not be famous personally.
posted by LooseFilter at 5:21 PM on February 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

From interviewmagazine.com

"I'm trying to have some control over my image. And I'm allowed to maintain some modicum of privacy. But also I would like not to be picked apart or for people to observe when I put on ten pounds or take off ten pounds or I have a hair extension out of place or my fake tan is botched." Most people don't have to be under that pressure, and I'd like to be one of them. I don't want to be followed by paparazzi."

posted by Tenuki at 6:23 PM on February 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeah, go see the documentary "Amy" to see what can happen to a performer without the privacy.
posted by sideshow at 7:07 PM on February 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Putting out an album of your best songs that you still have because they didn’t sell doesn’t seem like a wildly novel idea.
posted by bongo_x at 11:31 PM on February 2, 2016

I haven't seen Sia for a few years, but I knew her a bit as a girl and as a young woman, because I played in bands with her father. The first time I saw her gig she was six, and she sang Shimmy Shimmy Coco Pops. I always found her very pleasant and unaffected, even after she had had significant success.
posted by Wolof at 1:29 AM on February 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Shimmy Shimy Ko-Ko Bop! Goddam, probably drinking on that occasion.

Her father is a blues/R&B fan with deep stacks of that knowledge, absolutely one of Australia's better guitarists.
posted by Wolof at 3:18 AM on February 3, 2016

Putting out an album of your best songs that you still have because they didn’t sell doesn’t seem like a wildly novel idea.

Can you expand on this?
posted by josher71 at 7:25 AM on February 3, 2016

Can you expand on this?

I just thought the framing of the article was strange, one of those things that sounds like it makes sense on first glance, but then…

Let’s say you’re a songwriter and performer and you’re about to make a new album.

X: What do you have?
A: These are my best songs I have right now, no one else recorded them so I can.

This seems like the default for starting a project. Isn’t that what everyone does, every songwriter in the world, ever? Your other choices would be to not use your best or most commercial songs, which is an option, but hardly the first thing that comes to mind. "I’ve got all these great songs but I’m not going to record them, even though no one else is interested" would be a strange starting point.
posted by bongo_x at 10:15 AM on February 3, 2016

I don't sell songs but the idea is that these are songs are that were specifically turned down by other artists. I'm assuming the majority of songs that professional songwriters write that get turned down just go into the garbage. You never get to hear them done by someone who is a minor star in their own right, but is mostly known as a songwriter for others.
posted by josher71 at 11:21 AM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, that's a fair point. I think what makes what Sia's doing interesting is the this-is-how-the-sausage-is-made angle and the specificity of "I wrote this for someone else, they turned it down, here's the song anyway." She's being upfront about who turned it down, and what songs were for who, which adds an interesting layer to the songs. It's like they're ghost cover songs: a song whose original you'll never hear, but you do have the cover version, and you can sort of imagine the might-have-been.
posted by yasaman at 11:34 AM on February 3, 2016 [2 favorites]