Track Listing

1. Little Black Sandals
2. Lentil
3. Day Too Soon
4. You Have Been Loved
5. The Girl You Lost To Cocaine
6. Academia
7. I Go To Sleep
8. Playground
9. Death By Chocolate
10. Soon We'll Be Found
11. Electric Bird
12. Beautiful Calm Driving
13. Lullaby

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #883 in Music
• Released on: 2008-01-08
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced

Amazon.com
After a smattering of success surrounding her inclusion in the Six Feet Under series finale with the song "Breathe Me," and collaborations with electronic stars Massive Attack and Zero 7, Sia (Furler) returns with a pop record that's witty and touching, alternately funny and achingly melancholy. Shades of Fiona Apple cross with Joss Stone's blue-eyed soul. Sia shines on a terrifically sung take on the Kinks' (by way of the Pretenders cover) "I Go To Sleep" and her own deeply felt "Lentil." Many of these songs shimmer with a radio-friendly gloss, but the show belongs to this eccentric Australian, who bravely subverts the accessible production through winking and sometimes sinister lyrics. Beck guests on the metaphor-packed "Academia," book-ending lines like "you're a difficult equation with a knack for heart evasion" with a mournful chorus that strips away the lyrical cleverness to plumb the broken-hearted depths of a ruined relationship. Check your enhanced CD for a truly strange video for the hidden bonus track, "Buttons," in which Sia distorts her face using a wide variety of objects, including scotch tape, fishnet hose, and a condom, to name a few. If this playing with her own image is Sia's warning shot across the bow of a popular music industry obsessed with the visual, it'll make you think twice about what you're seeing, but can't distract from the intoxicating soundscape she delivers. --Ben Heege

Variety
"Like a chocolate cake doused in rum, it's sweet, but packs a kick."

New York Times
"Sia could upstage an elephant at the circus."

Customer Reviews

Humble and Humbling Genius
I first heard Sia as part of a group called: Zero 7. She has such an accessible and memorable quality to her voice. I then heard her interviewed on Nat'l Public Radio (US), and was so impressed with how humble and easy going she presented - so refreshing in this age of stardom. So many artists seem downright enamored with themselves - not this one! She was open about her fears, light-hearted in her answers, and seemed genuinely pleased to be given a chance to share her music.

Now to her voice - Fantastic! She sang live during the radio interview and demonstrated tremendous skill. Her pitch was always spot on. Sia shows true talent both for writing and performing. The songs are amazingly catchy and will find their way into your thoughts. I look forward to future releases from her!

one of the best albums i've heard in a long time
When I saw the cover art for this album, I thought that it would either be very good or completely horrible...After listening to the first couple of songs I knew this album was great.

The quirkiness of the melodies and lyrics is refreshing. I've been searching for an album like this for a long time.

5 star ratings are handed out too easily on here, so when I give an album 5 stars, I really, really like it. (And actually, I give this album 4.5 stars b/c only an extreme few are perfect.)

I've noticed by reading other reviews that a particular song on this album might be someone's favorite and another person's least favorite. B/c of that I won't go into detail as to which songs I like most/least, but I will say that I really enjoy the majority of these songs. Her voice is great (reminds me of a mix between Fiona Apple & Fergie, but I do wish she would enunciate better at times so I can understand more of the lyrics without looking them up), the lyrics fresh, and the music fantastic. I had never heard of Sia prior to this album, but after listening to this one, I've already ordered her first.

This is wonderful, genius, lovely, artistically marvelous
This is one of the BEST cd's this year (so far) and if you count videos into the mix this would have to be the best.
Every song on this is remarkable for one reason or another...but ACADEMIA has to win hands down for originality.