Sia's rise to fame

[iCpro 14,846]

11 minutes ago, brendablethyn said:

What are her fans called? Siamese?

little siatans 

[Fiona Apple 13,006]

It's crazy how she became famous without showing her face but it's also crazy how fast she declined  Sad about that because her new album is better than her last one

[urypv 44]

cheap trills 

[brendablethyn 536]

The only thing I don't like is how she has fetty wap, sean paul etc. on songs with her.

[StrawberryBlond 14,102]

I wouldn't call her fame much of a rise. She's only had one halfway successful album that produced one hit. She's only had 2 big hits of her own (Titanium and Chandelier) in all these years. Her biggest hits are written for other people where she took a behind the scenes role. It's probably in large part due to her age and the fact that she doesn't promote herself much or show her face when she does. Those kind of things really go against you in this business.

The covering up her face thing is a major bone of contention. People found it kooky and mysterious at first but now most people are finding it annoying and try hard and even rude at times (she turns herself away when being interviewed). I've been calling BS on her claims of social anxiety for a while now. Speaking as someone who's been dealing with anxiety for over a year and has been experiencing mild social anxiety for ages, I can confirm that someone who apparently has severe social anxiety like her would not be promoting and doing interviews and doing musical collabs and suchlike. Such people are virtual recluses and operate alone wherever possible. Covering their face with a massive wig does not magically make them ready to face the outside world with ease. Sia had no problem showing her face for years and yes, while anxiety can develop at any time, she has also had no problem showing her face on numerous occasions and showing up to a lot of award shows since making these claims. If anything, she probably just experiences mild anxiety and a bit of stage fright. But she thinks this ridiculous charade of covering her face in bizarre ways will make her mysterious and keep people interested in her. Actually, it's having the opposite effect - if we can't see her face, we can't relate. Which might explain why her songs have dipped in popularity recently. Because not only does she rarely promote them, she is never in the music videos and rarely gets interviewed. Keeping up that mysterious image doesn't make people more curious, it makes them not care. I just wish she would make it clear that this is more of a gimmick than a real mental disorder because it's offensive to people to actually suffer from it. And if she likes to be away from the spotlight so much and not draw attention to herself, why did she make such controversial videos for Chandelier and Elastic Heart, which were designed to spark debate? Why would she even release solo material at all? Why would she choose to perform songs she had originally written for other people? Sounds like an attention seeker in denial to me.

[Anderson123 35,605]

Yes, well, she was known for Breathe Me on Six Feet Under (This is how I found out about her), years before that she also worked with Zero 7 on a couple of albums and that's the sound that influenced her own sound. She still was this indie artist but it wasn't until Titanium as you said that people noticed her potential, in 2010 she released We Are Born, probably her poppiest album at that time and that also helped her. You forgot an important detail, she wrote Diamonds and Rihanna made that song huge, which is part of the big success that she had as a songwriter in the next couple of years.

And omg how could I forget about Bionic and Burlesque. Christina recruited her and they wrote around 5 tracks for those projects in 2010, I think that's why she decided to write more songs for other popstars. (Diamonds, Titanium and Wild Ones).

[iCpro 14,846]

13 hours ago, StrawberryBlond said:

I wouldn't call her fame much of a rise. She's only had one halfway successful album that produced one hit. She's only had 2 big hits of her own (Titanium and Chandelier) in all these years. Her biggest hits are written for other people where she took a behind the scenes role. It's probably in large part due to her age and the fact that she doesn't promote herself much or show her face when she does. Those kind of things really go against you in this business.

The covering up her face thing is a major bone of contention. People found it kooky and mysterious at first but now most people are finding it annoying and try hard and even rude at times (she turns herself away when being interviewed). I've been calling BS on her claims of social anxiety for a while now. Speaking as someone who's been dealing with anxiety for over a year and has been experiencing mild social anxiety for ages, I can confirm that someone who apparently has severe social anxiety like her would not be promoting and doing interviews and doing musical collabs and suchlike. Such people are virtual recluses and operate alone wherever possible. Covering their face with a massive wig does not magically make them ready to face the outside world with ease. Sia had no problem showing her face for years and yes, while anxiety can develop at any time, she has also had no problem showing her face on numerous occasions and showing up to a lot of award shows since making these claims. If anything, she probably just experiences mild anxiety and a bit of stage fright. But she thinks this ridiculous charade of covering her face in bizarre ways will make her mysterious and keep people interested in her. Actually, it's having the opposite effect - if we can't see her face, we can't relate. Which might explain why her songs have dipped in popularity recently. Because not only does she rarely promote them, she is never in the music videos and rarely gets interviewed. Keeping up that mysterious image doesn't make people more curious, it makes them not care. I just wish she would make it clear that this is more of a gimmick than a real mental disorder because it's offensive to people to actually suffer from it. And if she likes to be away from the spotlight so much and not draw attention to herself, why did she make such controversial videos for Chandelier and Elastic Heart, which were designed to spark debate? Why would she even release solo material at all? Why would she choose to perform songs she had originally written for other people? Sounds like an attention seeker in denial to me.

Why does she need to show her face? These days people have become so used to knowing every little detail about celebrities that when someone like Sia comes along they don't know how to react. Music is meant to be heard, not seen, so I don't know why it matters. For me not knowing much about her makes me be able to relate to the music more, because instead of thinking about her and what drove her to write a song as I do with many artists I think about it could relate to my own experiences. As for the music videos, she didn't design them to be controversial at all. It's just this f--ked up PC society that we live in always jumps to the worst case scenario and thought it was about pedophilia . Anyway, I don't see why it matters if she doesn't promote her material like other artists. She doesn't do it for the fame, she just enjoys making music. I also find it interesting you would mention This Is Acting, given that Gaga has done the exact same thing with telephone.

 

(I'm not going to comment on her anxiety because 1. it's none of my business, 2. I don't know much about the topic as I've never had to deal with it so I'm not qualified to discuss it.)

[Sia Daily 2,045]

I would say Sia is my fave singer after Gaga actually

[Gardevoir 9,632]

That's really interesting. I've never known her reasoning behind hiding her face and now I have the answer. Anyway it's really sad that she's been through breakdown and stuff. I hope she's okay now. 

[StrawberryBlond 14,102]

11 hours ago, MANiKIWI said:

Why does she need to show her face? These days people have become so used to knowing every little detail about celebrities that when someone like Sia comes along they don't know how to react. Music is meant to be heard, not seen, so I don't know why it matters. For me not knowing much about her makes me be able to relate to the music more, because instead of thinking about her and what drove her to write a song as I do with many artists I think about it could relate to my own experiences. As for the music videos, she didn't design them to be controversial at all. It's just this f--ked up PC society that we live in always jumps to the worst case scenario and thought it was about pedophilia . Anyway, I don't see why it matters if she doesn't promote her material like other artists. She doesn't do it for the fame, she just enjoys making music. I also find it interesting you would mention This Is Acting, given that Gaga has done the exact same thing with telephone.

 

(I'm not going to comment on her anxiety because 1. it's none of my business, 2. I don't know much about the topic as I've never had to deal with it so I'm not qualified to discuss it.)

Because in the Western world, we trust people whose faces we can see. We were given eyes, eyebrows, a mouth, a face, for the purpose of expressing our emotions. Therefore, as a singer, your face is pretty crucial to the human psyche. Yes, music is meant to be heard, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have to be seen. We watch a live performance for a reason, right? To not only hear live vocals but to see the artist's expressions, feel their emotions, feel their interaction with the crowd. That isn't possible with a covered face. At first, it provides an air of mystery but it quickly becomes tiresome because you're all: "Oh for goodness sake, stop hiding!" and in Sia's case, we've seen her face many times before, so it's even more pointless. It's the same way that the public thought Gaga's outfits were boring after a while and wished she would just show us what she really looked like without wigs and crazy make up and facial implants. Ok, maybe not seeing Sia's face makes you relate more, but to most of us, it doesn't. And most of us are interested in what drove an artist to write a song and their intentions behind it since music is about emotion. I constantly alter the meanings of songs to fit my experiences, so I know what you mean by relating in that sense. But like I said, I change them to suit me, they don't have to suit me from the outset. I think it's naive to think she didn't intend the videos to be controversial. It's not f*cked up to get creepy vibes from a pre-pubescent child cavorting around in a flesh coloured leotard (and later with a full grown man in his underwear). It's a perfectly sane reaction to feel it's wrong (I'm more worried about the people who were fine with it). What was wrong with using a grown female dancer? Sia knows what she's doing. She just doesn't want to be the face of it when it becomes controversial. And it's ok if it's one song (and Gaga doesn't have social anxiety, which is the point), but releasing a whole album consisting of songs meant for other people? That doesn't sound like something that a shy, reserving artist would do. I'm sure they'd believe that it was written for someone else for a reason. I mean, why would she make herself sound ridiculous by singing Sweet Design (that's definitely not what someone who's afraid of what people think of them would do)? It's like she wanted a bit more glory for herself.

Well, from what I've heard from people who do have severe social anxiety, it's nowhere near as simple as covering your face and you can go out. They can't go out at all, it's heavily linked to agoraphobia in lots of ways. But you can have panic attacks and have stage fright and not want to go out and not have severe anxiety disorder. It depends how often it manifests, what the context is and how extreme it is. But put it is this way, you will not see someone with severe anxiety disorder performing live on stage and going to awards shows and doing interviews. Sia's just shy and introverted, that's all. But these days, with such demonisation of such people, it's easy to think there's something wrong with you if you're not loud and don't like constant socialising.

[TSUNAMI 20,415]

On 14.03.2016. at 6:59 AM, Coop said:

I didn't know Titanium was written for Katy Perry.  

 

Like she could sang it.