Great voice, poor songs.
A look at the song titles on Sia’s latest album ‘Some People Have Real Problems’ immediately tells you what target market the record is aiming for and the mentality its operating at. The rise of Bridget Jones and independent women (only when they feel like it though) has proved that whilst some women may not be complete without a man, they aren’t going to shy away from living their life in public, which is good for many people, notably marketers as they have a lot of disposable income. Yes, career girls with plenty of cash but no kids to splash their cash on are a goldmine for companies and its these girls that are hopefully going to lap up the new album from Sia. Tracks like ‘Little Black Sandals’, ‘You Have Been loved’, ‘Death By Chocolate’ and ‘electric Bird’ positively scream out to the new brand of singleton women and the music behind this bland thinking is no more inventive than the lyrics suggest. ‘Death By Chocolate’ actually manages to sound like a song that The Lighthouse Family turned down because it was a bit too damp for them to release.
This album is the sound of light-filling, the sort of record you can listen to between albums without ruining your listening experience, its that inconsequential.
The chorus of ‘You Have Been Loved’ has a melodic interchange that has been stolen deftly from the Beatles ‘In My Life’, and lets be fair, if you’re going to steal from a Beatles track, that one is right up there with the ones you would pilfer from so top marks to Sia for that. However, when the best bit of the song comes from someone else, it maybe questions the work of the song writer.
We could go on about the music but anyone interested in a Sia album wouldn’t pay much attention to the music, they’d be equally pleased with an accappella album but whilst we are here, why not discuss the backing. Its stereotypically jazz-light, and theres no way that Sia could stand toe-to-toe with Amy when it comes to the energy and passion of some songs but you could definitely see her pulling the pigtails of Corrine Bailey Rae, albeit Corrine would be able to administer a decent Chinese Burn as she has at least managed one song with a memorable chorus. Oh wait, we were meant to talk about the music in this section, kinda got sidetracked there for a while. Like the best melody lines, the best musical bits are also borrowed from other sources, with the horn section on ‘Electric Bird’ proudly playing the “From a great height” section of Radioheads ‘Paranoid Android.’
Yet again we are faced with the problem of a female vocalist who has unquestionable talent but her songs just don’t the vocals justice. Sia’s album has that watered-down jazz feel that immediately puts her in the mould of Joss Stone or Amy Winehouse but without the good tunes, and if you are thinking that an artist has poorer songs than Joss Stone, then it really is a worrying situation. An album title like ‘Some People Have Real Problems’ may make you think that yes, even if an album isn’t the greatest that its alright because in comparison its far better than the wars, famines, pestilence, cruelty and natural disasters that are occurring around the world and that’s undeniable. Sadly for Sia, R13 is a music website and the social commentary must come a second so on this showing, there is one artist and record label who do have a real problem.