Each of Sia Furler's albums has been released on a different label, but it should come as no surprise that her fourth, and most promising, comes on Starbucks' label Hear Music. (It also should be no surprise that Hear Music has helped make this her most commercially successful record.) The Adelaide-born English crossover, who has worked with Jamiroquai, Massive Attack, and Zero 7, has been a likeable, clean-voiced accessory for years, but she got her first (independent) big break when "Breathe Me", off 2004's Color the Small One, was featured in the final episode of Six Feet Under and caused a minor that. Some People Have Real Problems tries to be something else: brazen yet fun, sophisticated yet goofy. Composed in large part by Sia in conjunction with her supporting instrumentalists, the songs are full of bounce, springtime, and California cool. And Beck is featured on two tracks, "Academia" and "Death By Chocolate". But it doesn't help.
From the start, Problems nods to both Sia's résumé and to her neighbors on the latté bar: Feist's playful, smokey ballads and Zero 7's drum-and-bass slugs. "Little Black Sandals" screams failure just by mentioning a pair of shoes in its title (see: Katherine McPhee) and the R&B reaches are dreadful. "Lentil" is brave and explorative by rhythm and melody, inserting a pinch of Regina Spektor-via-Tori Amos into the mix. Still, the chorus is too bland and the rhythm too slow. This andante dullness is prevalent on the album, as if Norah Jones were going about stealing Feist's audience.
has potential, but where this song could actually use the heat and the punch of percussion, there is none. "The Girl You Lost to Cocaine" is stellar, but like Esthero before her, Sia so often concedes to choruses that are rote and thin on the ground, packed full of airy, electrified harmonies. I want soars, climbs, and surprising bridges; instead there are puffed up harmonies and a tad of decoration from the brass and keys. The anticipation of the chorus is enough to play the song on repeat for a couple of days, but the chorus is still there, irritatingly memorable, and, in fact, it seeps into every part of the song, dominating the subtle inventions of melody and Sia's clear talent for deft hops around the scale. "Electric Bird" is a winner, though it, too, has stock elements in its alternatively languorous and rushed lyrics, pumps from the brass, and tricky shifts into minor key. "Playground"'s all click-clacking and hand-clapping and more overused vocal multi-tracking. I'd venture to say Sia has not penned a single song without this feature.
The perfect balance-- and the potential that few of the tracks reach-- is uncovered on "Soon We'll Be Found", which is sexy and balladic, yet dark and raging. It's surprising, colorful, and complex. But there are too many attempts at this type of song, and not enough of the springtime fun suggested on the ridiculous cover. If Sia spent more time at the piano, and/or hired Robyn to write her a couple of tracks, the results could be marvelous. But as it stands, Sia is not aware of her potential-- or rather, her options.
