"1000 Forms of Fear" The Review and the Reason Sia is the New Voice of Pop

Seventeen years ago, Sia Furler released her first album in Australia. I must admit I know little or nothing about her Australian career other than it was good enough that in 2008 she released her first album on the American market, Some People Have Real Problems. This album was of course my first experience with Sia and it was featured on iTunes with them giving away the video for the song "Soon We'll Be Found." Her unusual voice is reminiscent of the old crooning type rock/folk female singers of the '60s and '70s. Her newer music is more influenced by a blend of folk and electronic. Some People Have Real Problems reached number 26 in the US charts.

 With the success of Sia's first US album, Christina Aguilera asked her to write and produce a total of 4 tracks off her 2010 album Bionic, which was released 10 days before Sia's second US album We Are Born. Despite Sia's work on Christina's album, the four tracks were buried in the album and only one track made it to single "You Lost Me."


Collaborating with Aguilera opened more doors for collaborations including:

•  writing "She Wolf" and "Titanium" and performing them with David Guetta
•   sang "Wild Ones" with Flo-Rida
•  wrote "Let Me Love You (Until You Love Yourself" for Ne-Yo
•   wrote "Diamonds" for Rihanna
• she worked with Kesha on Warrior 
• wrote "Blank Page" for Lotus by Christina Aguilera
•  co-wrote "Radioactive" for Rita Ora
•  "Brathe" and "Unite" for Jessie J's album Alive
• co-wrote, with Britney Spears,  "Perfume," "Passenger," and "Brightest Morning Star" on Britney Jean
• is featured on "Battle Cry" by Angel Haze on their album Dirty Gold
• co-wrote "Loved Me Back to Life" for Celine Dion 
• co-wrote "Double Rainbow" for Katy Perry's album Prism 
• wrote "Pretty Hurts" for Beyoncé
• co- executive produced Kylie Minogue's album Kiss Me Once, and wrote the songs "Kiss Me Once" and "Sexercize" 
• co-wrote "Chasing Shadows" for Shakira 

This is very small list of her collaborations. She has worked with other artist and has offered many different levels of musical support.

Sia has now officially shaped pop music more than many other artist ever do. Though she has yet to have a number one hit from one of her own albums, she has generated number one hits for other artists. So why is Sia still relatively unknown? I have no idea. Her songs such as "Clap Your Hands" and "Breath Me" have been featured on tv and in trailers, she wrote a song for both the Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack and The Great Gatsby soundtrack.

Luckily 1000 Forms of Fear debuted at #1 on the iTunes chart. Sia has been gaining more and more coverage with this new album, with more people wondering why she is only really starting to gain popularity at this point. I think part of it might be that her sound is very unusual with hints of her her acid-jazz and trip hop roots fused with some sounds from modern Regae and influences from electronic and folk roots. Sia is very hard to classify musically because she is innovating. She is setting the standards for the pop industry.

"Chandelier," the lead single of 1000 Forms of Fear shows the power of Sia's voice and her lack of fear for her voice to sound flawless: her voice cracks and breaks at multiple points in the track, but it creates the feel of how much of a mess the speaker of the song is. That is a quality that Sia has that most other singers don't, she brings a level of performance to each track. Each song has it's own emotional appeal that Sia shows through her voice.

1000 Forms of Fear, features about fearlessness. The album is an excellent collection of songs working on the same theme. Each track has similar beats which unite the real of the album beyond the lyric connection of the album's central theme of conquering fears by growing from pain. Sia knows pain, which sounds like the most ridiculous statement to say about a musician, yet it is what makes her music strong. Her songs are not emo pity parties but celebrations of hurting so that a person can become stronger. Sia's vocalization of each track is in parallel to the lyrics and adds an additional level to the songs that most artist who sing her songs lack. Sia a rarity in pop music: she writes intelligent pop music, and 1000 Forms of Fear delivers intelligence and beauty through a voice that is indescribable and sound that is uniquely Sia's.