WITH ‘This is Acting’ due out today, Sia will no doubt have a tough time avoiding the spotlight. If you’ve watched any of Sia’s recent live performances, you’ll notice that she is… well… not completely there.
Since the Australian pop aficionado’s viral video for “Chandelier” came out in 2014, she has used other actors to convey her songs’ emotions.
And while some may say that hiding is only more distracting, Sia’s approach is intended to keep her public image secondary to her art. By eschewing pop superstardom, Sia focuses attention on the heart-wrenching compositions she is known for penning.
With the release of her seventh studio album today, how much longer can she avoid being sensationalised along with her music?
Aside from her inescapable chart-toppers from the early 2010s like ”Titanium” or ”Wild Ones”, she has since written for essentially every major female pop star, including Beyoncé, Rihanna, Britney Spears, Katy Perry and Christina Aguilera. Even Kanye West has been known to recruit Sia for her distinctly anguished, cracking vocals on a new single, “Wolves” for his upcoming album.
But collaborations aside, she stands firmly at the helm of her own full-fledged, solo career.
Last year’s “1000 Forms of Fear”, which contained the four-time Grammy nominated “Chandelier” and the equally exhilarating follow-up,”Elastic Heart”, was wildly successful. As Sia gears up to release “This is Acting”, it seems less likely that she will be able to remain in the background like she prefers.
Sia is a rarity in today’s climate of constant exposure. If you think of any figure in pop music as prolific as she is, that figure most likely has a carefully honed, pervasive pop-culture presence, like how Rihanna has polished her DGAF image in recent years. Solely based on the effort it must require, Sia’s refusal to stand in the spotlight is admirable.
With more attention on her solo work, she chooses to let her voice do all the work. After all, Sia’s explosive, faltering voice is unmistakably her own. She wants the music she writes and performs to speak for itself, without having to push it forward with a superficially curated image. Her mission feels altruistic, as if she is one of the last crusaders of pop music, battling to uphold the idea that it can stand alone and powerful.
I can think of a few artistes who have attempted to keep their public personas hidden, but the example that immediately comes to mind is The Weeknd. Abel Tesfaye’s first few tracks were released in 2010 under the moniker, The Weeknd, but his identity was initially unknown. And now look at him — even if he wanted to, retreating into obscurity isn’t a tenable option for him in 2016.
(Source:inverse.com)