This Is Acting is a reject’s club: A compilation of the songs Sia wrote for Adele, Rihanna, Beyoncé, and others – but they ended up not recording. Melodramatic in all the right ways, there is a sort of emotional rollercoaster present in many of this album’s tracks.
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Because these songs were written with different voices in mind and to be scattered across other albums, they make for an exhaustingly anthemic record all together.
“Sweet Design”, one of the later tracks on the album, shows the extent to which Sia can work with instrumentals that are more on the experimental and insane end of things. Now, for her follow-up to 2013’s 1000 Forms Of Fear, Sia is bucking the pop star prototype once more.
This isn’t the breathy, prettily recessive Sia of the early aughts, a sometime singer for downtempo British duo Zero 7 and solo starlet whose “Breathe Me”, a.k.a. the Death Montage Song from HBO’s Six Feet Under, became her American calling card.
The album’s first single, Alive, was meant for Adele as part of her blockbuster album 25. The enigmatic Aussie went from co-penning songs for the likes of Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, and Pitbull to topping the charts herself with “Chandelier” (which just surpassed one billion views on YouTube). “That’s a real luxury when you’re in my industry”. While backed by the thunderous drums, Sia delivers inspirational message as she sings, “I’m not discarding you like broken glass/ There are no winners when the die is cast/ There’s only tears when it’s the final task/ So don’t give up, it’s just young lovers’ romance”. Surprisingly, it’s the Kanye West-produced track, “Reaper”, that feels the most like a retread. She presents a collection of songs that can be bellowing in melancholic and somber qualities (“Space Between” being an elegantly morose ending to the highs and lows of This is Acting) or completely empowered, bold dance anthems that hold up to the caliber she has demonstrated in the past. With her emergence from the song-crafting woodwork into the spotlight, she made us think about who can be a pop star.
Sia might argue that this was all part of her plan.
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Artists such as Beyoncé, Rihanna, Alicia Keyes, Britney Spears, Kylie, Rita Ora, Christine Aguilera and Celine Dion (to name a mere eight) have benefitted from Sia’s solid gold songwriting touches, and This is Acting will only add to the pile.
