CD Reviews

Sia

Some People Have REAL Problems | Hear Music

By KEN MICALLEF | January 28, 2008

3.0 Stars

Australian vocalist Sia Furler has one of the greatest potty mouths in alt-rock. She told one interviewer she enjoyed anal sex and invited another to listen to her “wee.” (Her dog’s name? “Lick Lick Science.”) Such matters aside, Sia has gone from being just another pretty Zero 7 voice to a gutsy singer who’s getting Amy Winehouse comparisons. Like Winehouse’s Back to Black, Some People Have REAL Problems relies on jazzy, R&B vocals with roots in Mavis Staples. But where Winehouse pursues self-annihilation, Sia greets life with a joyful embrace. Written with bassist Sam Dixon and producer Jimmy Howarth (James Blunt, KT Tunstall), her fourth album brims with sunny hooks on its best tracks, and the alluring opener, “Little Black Sandals,” affords her a rich, layered backdrop. Sia acts the sex-sated starlet in the funk lullaby “Day Too Soon,” and then, with the spirit of a gutsy soul belter, she kicks her lover to the curb in “The Girl You Lost to Cocaine.”

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ARTICLES BY KEN MICALLEF

SIA | January 28, 2008
Australian vocalist Sia Furler has one of the greatest potty mouths in alt-rock.

NATALIE WALKER | January 14, 2008
It’s all soothing, but Walker’s never too sweet.

DAN WILSON | November 19, 2007
It’s as if he were trying to impress mom while keeping the kids at bay.

SERJ TANKIAN | October 08, 2007
Playing almost all the instruments and freed from the Goliath prog-metal of System of a Down, he gives full release to his inner clown parade.

SWEDE STUFF | June 04, 2007
To most rock fans, psychedelic means Jimi Hendrix and Arthur’s Lee’s Love, or Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” and Frigid Pink’s “House of the Rising Sun.”