Album cover: without arms or legs.
As the beat begins to groove on the opening track, “Little Black Sandles”, you could be forgiven for thinking this was a scene from Six Feet Under. For non-fans who are feeling slightly confuzzled, allow me to elaborate: Sia’s ‘Breathe Me (from her very good 2004 album Colour the Small One) was used in the closing scenes of Six Feet Under to haunting effect. It also introduced the concept of it being “pretty acceptably cool” to like Sia’s floating borrowed-jazz soundscapes. [Note: that same riff was later used in a television campaign for an Australian supermarket, but we'll brush over that.]
So, essentially, this album is the same sound as the last, jah?
Not quite.
Undoubtedly, there are numerous tracks that capitalise on that ‘Sia’ sound that the broader public have come to appreciate. “You Have Been Loved” takes Colour’s slow, whispy – almost incoherent – vocals but transplants them over a more mainstream concoction of piano-meet-strings-hello-guitar. The afore-mentioned “Little Black Sandals” glows with the familiar vocal texture but stirs them around with some punchy vocal phrasing. And here is where it gets interesting.
Where Colour was an album of restaint and consistency, Some People Have Real Problems is a rich mosaic of sounds – drawing on some unexpected influences. Lead single “Day Too Soon” could easily have been a disposable Gabrielle number (aargh, me hearties) were it not for the insistent groove and increasingly swelling jazztastics. “The Girl You Lost To Cocaine” shimmies into a Nikka Costa soulful funk and doesn’t let go, whereas “Academia”s singsong verses hint at an early Liz Phair.
Don’t be misled, however: this isn’t an album of someone borrowing others sounds and patching them together with some colourful superglue. Real Problems sparkles with an off-kilter freshness that was near-unrivalled in ‘08. Lyrically astute and delivered with a fascinating emotional depth, the album bridges the gap between Furler’s earlier works and pops out her career achievement thus far.
In summary: original, innovative and complex. One of the best you’d have heard this year, if you’d known.
Standout track: Buttons (from the bonus disc), Electric Bird
Playing around with the zoo in Sia's hair. Naturally.
For more Sia goodness, visit her website: http://www.siamusic.net or Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/siamusic
Great article! Some People Have Real Problems is hands down one of the best albums that came out in 2008.