1000 Forms of Fear (2014)
Sia
Chandelier
How can an upbeat song with and uplifting tune be so depressingly about someone “holding on for dear life”? One of the biggest hits of 2014, Chandelier is a YOLO anthem from the elusive Sia Furler. On this track she plays the role of a conceited, pathetic, and heavily intoxicated party girl who most likely have danced to the hits penned by Sia herself. This persona has a penchant for bold declarations such as “Party girls don’t get hurt” and “I feel the love”. A character that not too many people will love, she has, at least, an interesting backstory that Sia has given justice to in this very song through an incredibly nuanced delivery of the song’s brilliant lyrics.
With Sia‘s signature nasal vocals that cracks delicately in all the right places, the drunken posturing that constitutes the soaring and memorable chorus catapults the song to the stratosphere, where it reaches highs more lasting than those achieved by anyone who’s ever gotten stuck in the habit of downing a drink or two to feel better.
See, “I’m gonna swing from the chandelier,” is cleverly effective as a brave can-do manifesto and, at the same time, as a desperate call for help. She’s having the time of her life, swinging from the decadence embodied by the image of a luxurious chandelier. Yet, the same line could easily project an image of a lifeless body hanging on it, too. In the background, the flighty keyboard fingering builds up the hopeful facade in an attempt to to dissipate the looming tremors induced by the bass.
When she says that she keeps her “glass full until morning light”, it works on so many different levels; one would wonder whether she’s refraining from touching it or she’s making sure it gets refilled once, twice, thrice, till she loses count. And whether she chooses to abstain or binge drink her way, the same line assures that she’s making a conscious effort to becoming an optimist. It is the only way she can do to stay alive.
Big Girls Cry
Big Girls Cry give a melancholic preview of what the morning after a night of misadventures is like to Chandelier‘s heroine. See, this girl is one who tries to appear okay in everyday life – she is, after all, a “tough girl in the fast lane” who has “no time for drama“. She doesn’t even care that she doesn’t look pretty when she cries – and mentioning this casually is her wanting everyone to know that she needs help. The fact that a person could be so defeated, to the point where she feels compelled to justify her heartbreak and tears – that big girls also cry when their hearts break – is just sad.
The loneliness she contends with on a daily basis is even made depressing by telling how it is like in a series of short statements: I’m at home/on my own/Check my phone/Nothing, though/Act busy/Order in/Pay TV/It’s agony. She finds solace in her routines but the cycle can’t go on forever without causing her to break down. When she does give in to her emotions, the sparse background music gives in to a more elaborate instrumentation. The restraint towards letting it all out at once is, however, still heavy.
Burn the Pages
The celebratory beats in Burn the Pages do not mask the same worries that the pop-ier parts of the previous two songs conceal. It acknowledges, and then banishes, them. Do yourself a favor and put this track on your cheer-yourself-up playlist.
Eye of the Needle
This track no less moving than the rest of the songs in 10,000 Forms of Fear, but I feel like the potential of this song will be more realized fully if this was handed over to an artist like Rihanna, as a more R&B direction towards this song’s development could turn it into the knockout track that it’s supposed to be.
Having said that, Sia’s rendition is still laudable for its sincerity.
Hostage
I have an impression that this new wave pop upbeat track is reminiscent of the singles Sia churned out in We Are Born. It’s spastic, ambivalently blissful, and Sia-quirky.
Straight for the Knife
This beautiful ballad opens with a description of how she dolls herself up in preparation of a meeting with someone she is in a troubled relationship with. She knows that being with her companion is not healthy for her but she couldn’t help it and she is not asking anyone to sympathize with her and the choices she makes.
Although it tends to be tedious at times and production is not as exciting as in the other tracks, Straight for the Knife never treads into sappy territory. Sia‘s vocal performance gives justice to this tenderly heartbreaking number.
Fair Game
While it is nice to have the upper hand in any given relationship, being in charge of the steering wheel could get tiring and on this track, Sia languishes in desperation to “play a fair game” for once.
It’s always tempting to conflate the persona in a song to the recording artist and I’ll give in to this temptation here. I think Sia herself is that desperate to play the Fair Game. She’s most likely always the more successful half in every coupling she’s been a part of, and this explains the elusive hiding-in-shades act. She doesn’t want to be any more famous than she already is!
Elastic Heart
Prior to appearing in the album, Elastic Heart featured in the soundtrack for the film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Like in that album, Elastic Heart is a standout in 10,000 Forms of Fear with its aggressive beats and conflicted demeanor arising from the desire to come to terms with oneself after surviving a terrible breakup.
In a nutshell, Elastic Heart is one of those rare songs that never get old. Its melody is so damn catchy and the lyrics contain so many layers and as new meanings unravel in each listen, chancing upon this song in shuffle mode is a joy.
Free the Animal
Eccentrically sublime and overtly brutal, Free the Animal is a reiteration of the album’s theme: love equated to violence. With weird noises and instrumentation, it does feel like a more subdued M.I.A. song with lush vibraphone sounds that are worth dying for. In addition, I love how Sia subjected her vocals to some vibraphonic treatment, too. This track is golden.
Fire Meet Gasoline
The hesitation to allow oneself to fall in love and risk hurting is an ever-present statement in the album and that reluctance, or fear, is emphasized best in this song. This is a beautiful, Sia-fied reconstruction of Kelly Clarkson‘s Already Gone and Beyonce‘s Halo – two bright pop gems from the past decade.
With fire symbolically used as a motif to denote passion, Fire Meet Gasoline is rich in metaphors that are too beautifully arranged to be identified as the cliché that they actually are.
Cellophane
Sia says she’s such a basket case, and like an actual basket case, she’s wrapped in cellophane. There’s something so genius about her knack for seamlessly going back and forth between literal and figurative in this open letter to substance abuse.
Dressed in Black
Dressed in Black is a fitting epic final song for 10,000 Forms of Fear. It’s a haunting and almost frightening song with a very positive message. Covered in the blackness of failed relationships, a departed lover, heavy dependence on pain killers, the pressures of a career in the music industry, and suicidal thoughts, she breaks herself free from them in the final 2 and a half minutes. Here, she wails and exiles her regrets, frustrations, desperations, vengefulness, and many other negative emotions. Her languishing is heartbreakingly genuine and breathtakingly exquisite. She ends it all by thanking the one person who “covered her heart with kisses” despite finding her dressed in black.
Label: Inertia, Monkey Puzzle, RCA
Producers: Christopher Braide, Greg Kurstin, Diplo, Jesse Shatkin
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