Weekly > Reviews
Sia - Some People Have Real Problems
Imagine my delight, when onto my doormat drops the latest album from Sia, a lady i’ve admired from her various collaborations with Zero 7 (another band i’ve got a lot of time for) and her last solo album (aside from the live album last year) Colour The Small One. Also try and picture my face when I slipped the said CD onto my stereo and it starts jumping and skipping across half the tracks!
Luckily my contact was good enough to send me another one out and i’m back in business, I can sit down and listen to Some People Have Real Problems exactly how albums were intended to be listened to…from start to finish with no interuptions or jumping to your favourite tracks.
One thing is clear from the outset, Sia has added a little more pop nouse to her songwriting and this shines throughout the whole album. For a lot of people this might be considered a bad thing, we aren’t though talking about an artist selling out, the songs are still beautifully crafted and her voice is still as original and mesmerising as ever.
The album does take a little bit to get into it’s stride, Little Black Sandals is a great opening track until it lets itself down with the kids vocals at the end and Lentils is a pretty average ballad track. The brilliant single Day Too Soon picks things up though and from that point on, it doesn’t look back as an album.
You Have Been Loved is one of my favourite tracks on the album, a really dramatic orchestral opening, it then builds both musically and emotionally providing a fantastic vehicle to show off her vocal range. Despite the title and lyrics, The Girl You Lost To Cocaine is very jaunty in style with piano and horns real lifting the song to make it one of the most immediate tracks on here.
- Sia
- Some People Have Real Problems (2008)
- Category: Album
- Label: Monkey Puzzle Records
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 13 Jan 2008
- Photography by: Michal Sendaydiego
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
Weblinks
Add to favouritesMy favourite track is up next though and would make a fantastic single, Academia has a fantastic pace to the track as she plays on the words and i’d love to see her performing this one live. I Go To Sleep isn’t the strongest but is still a decent cover (The Kinks), Playground has a slightly oriental feel to it and Death By Chocolate has a real sense of fun about it in the lyrics.
The four closing tracks on the album all keep the standard up, with Soon We’ll Be Found probably just being the pick of a good bunch. I’ve probably played this album about eight or nine times now and it’s still sitting together as well as it did on the first listen, hopefully this will be the album that pushes Sia further into the public eye and gets her some new fans.
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