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The official Sia thread; New album “This Is Acting”
Topic Started: Mar 15 2014, 06:30 PM (3,104 Views)
Beautiful Stranger
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johnnox
Oct 20 2015, 09:40 AM
BS - are you okay hon? You're turning into a right negative Nancy at the moment. Does someone need a hug?
No, I just think her cover was shit lol.
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Riverwide
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#ThisIsActing pre-order starts Nov 4th at midnight local time & comes with “Alive” and “Bird Set Free” instantly.
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Riverwide
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The new single:

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Pera
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so reductive
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Riverwide
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Her sound is getting rather samey now.
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FuckBuddy
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Riverwide
Nov 3 2015, 09:05 PM
Her sound is getting rather samey now.
indeed. she's recycling the same old again and again.
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bulgar
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Still a thousand times better than the crap played on the radio.
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bulgar
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I know I'm in the minority here, but I love this so much better than Hello.

I'm not gon' care if I sing off key
I find myself in my melodies
I sing for love, I sing for me
I shout it out like a bird set free

:celebrate: :wub:


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Riverwide
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New song!

http://www.popfreak.co.uk/2015/new-track-sia-one-million-bullets/
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bulgar
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bulgar
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a fascinating behind-the-scenes interview with Sia in Rolling Stone

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Sia's Reject Opus: Songwriter on Reclaiming Adele, Rihanna's Unwanted Hits

Singer dishes on writing sessions with Katy Perry and Beyoncé,


Sia Furler's forthcoming album, This Is Acting (due January 29th), has a novel concept: It's full of songs rejected by A-list artists. Furler has been successfully writing for music's biggest names, from Adele to Beyoncé, since she crossed over to writing pop music around five years ago, after solidifying herself as a Top 40 artist with her hit single "Chandelier." "I feel like they're hits, but nobody wanted them," she says of the tracks on the new LP, which have been written during the last few years. "So I thought, 'Let's see, as an experiment, if I'm right.'"

In anticipation of the album, Furler spoke in depth with Rolling Stone about pop music, her productivity and on becoming her clients' "bitch" in the studio.

You've described songwriting for others as "play-acting," hence the title This Is Acting. But can you take me through that mindset of writing a song with the intention of having it sung by someone else?

Sure. 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. I write over them in my house, and I record demos of them, in my house. I have an engineer come over. If I know Rihanna is looking for a single, I'll actually choose tracks that sound like a Rihanna-like jam, and then I'll start the writing process over it. That will come first with melody, and then I'll chose lyrical content from a list of concepts I have in my phone, and whenever I think of one, I write it down.

So I'll just scroll through all of my notes and look for concepts that feel like that particular artist. I might have something called "Bubble Gum," and I'll think, "Yeah, that's not Rihanna, that's more for a younger artist." Or I might have something like "Liquor," and with that as a concept, I can imagine that she would sing something about someone not being able to hold their liquor. Melody comes first, and you have to feel like she can sing it, and then I have to choose lyrical content that also feels aligned to that particular artist. That's kind of how I do it. I'm often wrong, and then the song ends up in a different home, and sometimes it ends up in the trash.

It's really just hit or miss, and I think the reason I'm pretty successful is actually because I'm really productive, not necessarily that I'm a great songwriter. I think I'm a good curator, so I know how to choose tracks that feel like they're anthemic, or that seem to have an uplifting quality in the chorus. It really seems like the general public responds well to songs about salvation or overcoming something, or that everything’s going to be OK, or that things are fun. So yeah, I think that my skill is more upbeat curating, as in choosing the right tracks and then sort of trying to understand the will or nature of popular culture.

With that theme in mind, I feel like you've always been really great at not crossing that line of cheesiness when writing something that's empowering. You avoid clichés ...

Thank you. That's hilarious to me, because I think that the stuff I write for pop music is terribly, terribly cheesy, but I'm coming from an indie background. I was like "Whoa" when I decided to crossover. For me, "Titanium" is very cheesy. And "Wild Ones" is definitely 100 percent cheese. It was quite confronting to start writing in that way. I never intended or wanted either of those songs to be seen because I felt like it diluted my credibility because I found them to be very cheesy. I wanted other people to sing them, and I just wanted to collect the publishing checks at the end of the day. It turned out that both of those songs really helped me in the end to secure my place as a pop songwriter, and that also the success of them helped erode my feelings of insecurity around how cheesy they were.

[After] watching the PS22 choir sing "Titanium" and then listening to the children being interviewed afterwards saying that it actually really impacted them — some of the kids were being bullied — I felt like I was jaded and cynical, and I felt like a bit of an asshole. I thought, "Why don't you loosen up, you prick! This stuff that you think is cheesy is really impacting these kids around the world. Why don't you stop being so judgmental?" [Laughs] I actually had that conversation with myself.

But I still believe I'm straddling the line between art and commerce, but I think that my visual work is art and my music is definitely commercial. I think I managed to trick people a little bit into thinking I'm more arty by making creative, artistic, visual work and applying it to commercial music. Maybe. I don't know.

Were you a pop consumer and listener before you started writing pop music?

No. I mean, yes, as a 10-year-old. Probably from like 10 to 14 or 15, I would just listen to pop radio. Then I started to listen to some more, I guess [it] would be considered more indie music. I was listening to Jeff Buckley and Soul II Soul and Malcolm McLaren. And then I just stopped. I discovered television. I started actually singing and writing music, and as soon as I started singing and writing it, I stopped listening to it really. When I was on tour with Zero 7, they would listen to music. We would be on the tour bus and the Kings of Convenience would be playing, and then I made Colour the Small One which couldn't be more derivative of Kings of Convenience and James Taylor and the things that Zero 7 were playing on the bus. I'm very easily influenced, and I'm also a quick study, so I think when I decided I wanted to write pop songs I literally just listened to pop radio for six months to get a feel for it and understand it.

Were all the songs from This Is Acting intentionally written for other artists?
Yes, actually, I guess all of them were written with the intention of being for somebody else. But there is one I didn't send to anybody called "One Million Bullets." That one I liked — and I already had so much of the album completed — but I loved it and didn't want to give it to anyone else. So that one I don't think I sent to anyone else, but my memory's terrible. There's one that I went into a session with Kanye, to write for Rihanna, so that one was intended for her, but then I'm keeping that one.

Was that "Reaper"?
Yeah!

I was surprised when I found out that the song was co-written by Kanye. What were your writing sessions with him like?
Well, he wasn't there!

He wasn't?
[Laughs] No! They'll entice me into a session by saying, "Rihanna will definitely be there" or "Kanye will definitely be there," but it's hilarious because I turn up and, almost always, they never come. So I went into the studio to write for Rihanna with Kanye and neither of them showed up and stayed for less than an hour. They had two tracks. They told me what they had wanted. There were notes from Kanye, and I can't even remember what they were. I remember I just raced in and raced out, and I thought there was something about the chorus that seemed fun about this song, but I never thought it would see the light of day. My manager pushed for this song to be on the record, but I don't care about it.

You don't care about the song?

I don't care about the song. I know in print that will look bad, but what I mean is I'm not emotionally attached to it. I thought it was a fun song. I think it's a good, fun song, but I didn't anticipate it being on the record. But my manager really likes it so I put it on for him.

I heard the song "Cheap Thrills" and that one also sounds like it could be for Rihanna ...

Yeah, it totally was.

I felt like I could hear her singing it.

Her manager said "We want 'Diamonds.' [Ed. Note: Furler wrote "Diamonds" for Rihanna] We need soul. We want some music that has feeling. I went to Greg [Kurstin], and that's what we came up with. I realized just as soon as I was cutting it that it sounded a little bit too Brit-pop for her. It's more Icona Pop. We did actually send it to her, but they passed on it, and then I just couldn't stop listening to it in the car. For some reason, I really liked listening to it which makes me feel masturbatory, but I wouldn't normally be just jamming out to my own tunes. There's something really uplifting about it that put me in a good mood, and I would just pretend it wasn't me singing [laughs]. It felt very summer and fun, and I was like, "I'll put that on there."

What song or songs feel the most Sia to you? Which ones are you most connected with?

"One Million Bullets" is my baby. I had seller's remorse with "Bird Set Free" every time it went away and then came back. First it went to Rihanna and then it was returned. Then it went to Adele, and Adele cut it and sounded amazing on it. Then it was returned. The truth is that we wrote "Bird Set Free" for Pitch Perfect 2. They rejected it and took another song of ours called "Flashlight." That become a big thing through the movie, but I could not believe they rejected "Bird Set Free" because to me it was such a big, anthemic, fun, sing-along-in-the-car song. I felt seller's remorse. I had grief. I feel connected to that song. I feel connected to a song called "Footprints." That was a Beyoncé reject that I wrote in the Hamptons a couple years ago. I feel really connected to one song that I actually decided to leave off the album because I wanted to use it in the movie I'm directing next May. And I really like "Cheap Thrills" because I think it's fun. Those are the ones I actually feel most connected to, but the truth is I can't even remember the track listing because I've taken off songs, picked up another one so many times, I actually don't even know. I like one called "Broken Glass." That's another one, but I think that might only be a bonus track.


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/sias-reject-opus-songwriter-on-reclaiming-adele-rihannas-unwanted-hits-20151203#ixzz3tJPnZAwC
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bulgar
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:drama:




Edited by bulgar, Dec 4 2015, 01:56 AM.
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Riverwide
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I love all three songs from the album now. Such growers!
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3 out of 5 from Rolling Stone:

The past decade-plus of pop music has been dominated by behind-the-scenes songwriting maestros like Max Martin and Ryan Tedder, but only one of them – 40-year-old Australian Sia Furler – has become a solo star in her own right. Sia had a career as an electronica-leaning artist in the early 2000s, before finding her voice as a Top 40 master blaster, writing smashes for Beyoncé, Rihanna and more. She saved her most intense fire for her own breakout solo hit, 2014's "Chandelier" – a diabolically catchy depiction of alcoholism that was also so real it could scare Jim Beam off booze.

Sia's songs update the grandiose Eighties lite-rock ballad tradition of Diane Warren and Phil Collins for our moodier era of R&B-inscribed feminism, delivering lyrics about strain, perseverance and redemption over tracks that build from tensely foreboding verse to a titanic cathartic chorus. She's mastered the formula so well that she's made her seventh solo album a commentary on how hit songs are made. The tunes here were originally intended for – and then rejected by – major singers. It's a fascinating study in what it's like to live life imagining yourself in someone else's artistic shoes.

This Is Acting opens with two songs that Sia hoped to land on Adele's 25. Her approximation of the phrasing and tone of the world's most beloved singer over the roiling piano on "Bird Set Free" is uncanny, while "Alive" is a throwback soul crusher that would've been the hardest-hitting thing on that blockbuster LP. Even when the match between artist and material isn't quite copacetic, the quality control is high: Rihanna might've been right to dismiss "Cheap Thrills," but the lithe party tune could've done well for a sprightlier singer like Ariana Grande. Other highlights, such as the industrial-strength anthem "Unstoppable," feel like they could've been recorded by a half-dozen artists, from Katy Perry to Miley Cyrus.

Sometimes these outtakes feel like, well, outtakes: "Footprints" is an orphan from a Beyoncé writing session with refrigerator-magnet-level lyrics (comparing a relationship's progress to "two footprints in the sand") that Bey was wise to pass on. Impressively, though, for an album that's more about utilitarian versatility than making the songs her own, Sia's personality often comes through. The high point is "One Million Bullets," the only song she wrote with herself in mind. Against a dusky minor-key piano, Sia offers herself as her lover's protector, muse and martyr – her voice cracking perfectly in the chorus as she asks if they'd take a shot for her too. If this is acting, it's the kind of performance that hits as hard as life itself.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/sia-this-is-acting-20160115
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Riverwide
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30 second clips of all the songs we don't have yet:

http://bookletmusic.blogspot.it/2015/09/sia-titolo-nuovo-album-uscita-nuovo.html
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johnnox
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Mix half of her last album with half of this and you'd have the album of the decade.
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Riverwide
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Not a bad summation indeed!
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bulgar
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An amazing collection of songs.

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Riverwide
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She's such a fantastic songwriter.
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FuckBuddy
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well, she's wise enough to know she should stick to composing pop gems for other younger popstars from this point on. she's turned 40 therefore her expiry date is sort of over. it's harsh but we've seen this happening with numerous far more established women in the music industry during the past few years.
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