Beat Bugs creator Josh Wakely once had a vision to grace young ears with classic hits from the Beatles. Seeing that dream to fruition, his Netflix show Beat Bugs now features over 50 of the highly sought-after tracks. Considering the quintet’s portfolio is one of the most protected in all of pop music, this is quite a ridiculous feat.
It didn’t happen overnight, it took three long years for Wakely to secure the rights to the tunes. Whilst patiently waiting, he managed to swindle some huge artists into performing cover tracks and the most recent to hit the screens was a heartache-inducing rendition of Blackbird by Australia’s own Sia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYU5RrYQ9fI
I’m not crying, you are.
The most recent episode also included Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds covered by P!nk. Being quite a precious John Lennon enthusiast, I’ll be the first to admit I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself relishing her husky tones. The show’s first season also boasts some other outrageously huge artists including – but not limited to – Regina Spektor, Soundgarden and The Shins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T9E7mUITgs
Beat Bugs also featured an adorable rendition of Magical Mystery Tour earlier in the season by rugged heart palpitator Eddie Vedder. Even as an animated grasshopper, he’s still one of the most attractive beings on planet Earth. Even Wakely was weak at the knees – stating that when he received the call back from his childhood hero he initially thought he was being Punk’d.
When Wakely pitched the basic structure of his idea he claimed to have a lot of support from backers. However when casually mentioning “all I need to do is get the the rights to the Beatles songs”, he claims he was often looked at like he was “a bit crazy”.
Though Season One has only just been released to Netflix viewers, Season Two has already been confirmed. With the Beatles having one of the most extensive catalogs of all time, Wakely can take comfort in knowing that his musical inspiration has left him with a long Ticket To Ride on.
Image: PR News Wire
Drake has held number one on Billboard’s Hot 100 list for 10 weeks now with One Dance. Not bad for his first number one, huh?
Well, his reign is over – although it may be brief – as another track has taken the coveted spot, despite being released several months ago. Sia‘s Cheap Thrills marks her first time leading the Hot 100 with her own single (she wrote Rihanna’s Diamonds, which was also number one in 2012) and the first female to do so since Madonna in 2000. The song has spent 23 weeks in the charts overall.
Cheap Thrills is from her latest album This Is Acting, which was released in January this year. Other singles from the album including Alive and Bird Set Free had a good amount of radio play, but never reached the peak spot on the Billboard charts.
During an interview with Rolling Stone last year, she revealed that she had originally written the song for Rihanna, however, it was turned down:
“Her manager said “We want Diamonds. We need soul. We want some music that has feeling. I went to Greg [Kurstin], and that’s what we came up with. I realised just as soon as I was cutting it that it sounded a little bit too Brit-pop for her. It’s more Icona Pop. We did actually send it to her, but they passed on it, and then I just couldn’t stop listening to it in the car,” she recalled.
“There’s something really uplifting about it that put me in a good mood, and I would just pretend it wasn’t me singing,” she described the song with a laugh. “It felt very summer and fun, and I was like, ‘I’ll put that on there.'”
I’m sure she’s grateful that she kept it. Watch the video for Cheap Thrills below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31crA53Dgu0
Image: Billboard
Sia has been added to the star-studded cast of My Little Pony: The Movie, set for release in October 2017. The extremely talented Australian artist joins Liev Scheriber, Emily Blint, Taye Diggs, Uzo Aduba and many more big names in the animated film.
The This Is Acting artist will play the pony Songbird Serenade, a pop star in the film. The pony bears an identifiable likeness by way of her face being hidden by a mop of blonde and black hair, a look now famously synonymous with the Adelaide-born artist.
The full cast for the upcoming film was announced at Comic-Con in San Diego last week. It was also announced that Sia will be contributing two new original songs to the official soundtrack.
According to Variety, the plot centres on the “‘Mane 6′ characters — Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Rarity — embarking on a journey to meet new friends and challenges on a quest to use the magic of friendship and save their home.”
The first My Little Pony movie based on the beloved Hasbro toy characters came out back in 1986. It features vocal performances from Danny DeVito, Madeline Kahn, Rhea Pearlman and others.
Sia is currently on a massive world tour in support of her recent album This Is Acting. As yet, no Australian dates have been announced.
My Little Pony: The Movie will be released on October 6, 2017.
Read our review of This Is Acting
Image: Instagram
Sia Furler, also known as just Sia, has further ensured that she will be remembered within the Australian music community for generations, after giving her name to a new University of Adelaide music institute.
According to The Advertiser, the new program will be named the Sia Furler Institute for Contemporary Music and Media, and will be housed at the University’s Elder Conservatorium of Music.
Speaking from Los Angeles, the media-shy singer kept things short and sweet, thanking the University of Adelaide and remarking that, “It’s very exciting and humbling.”
Speaking to the Adelaide Observer, conservatorium director Professor Graham Koehne said that, “As a performer and songwriter, and one whose creativity extends equally to video and digital media, Sia has become an inspiration to artists the world over and it’s that talent that we aim to foster through our new institute.”
Courses on offer at the new institute will include contemporary music performance, composition, sound engineering, film and digital media.
Sia is just one of a handful of artists to step into the academic fray recently.
Back in January DJ Khaled was promoted to the position of principal for a middle school for a day and just last month it was announced that Q-Tip would be appointed as the first artistic director of hip-hop at the Kennedy Centre.
Special mention also goes to this lucky class that had an English lesson from none other than Kendrick Lamar about the concepts of To Pimp a Butterfly last year.
Read our review of Sia’s This is Acting here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31crA53Dgu0
Image: Rolling Stone
Things have been anything but slow for Sia since the release of This is Acting in January. Currently in the US, the Adelaide-born artist made waves earlier this week with an impressive performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live (beamed in from SXSW no less). With follow-up appearances slated for Amercian Idol and Coachella before she sets out for a string of European tour dates, it seems like it’ll be a while before Sia returns to Australian shores.
Now, the pop artist has released a new clip for latest single Cheap Thrills. The sixth track from her latest LP, the video again features 13-year old Maddie Ziegler, who previously appeared in Chandelier, Big Girls Cry and Elastic Heart.
Co-directed by Sia, the stripped-back clip puts the focus squarely on the dancer’s frenzied and meticulously synchronised choreography. A direct extension of the beat-driven tracks uplifting tone and dance infused message, hectic and claustrophobic filmography certainly throws back to the distinctive visuals of Chandelier. Donning her trademark wig, Furlow herself also makes an appearance, unassumingly performing vocals in the background.
Considering the track’s Carribean percussion, it might not come as a surprise that the track was initially penned with Rihanna in mind. “I realized just as soon as I was cutting it that it sounded a little bit too Brit-pop for her. It’s more Icona Pop. We did actually send it to her, but they passed on it, and then I just couldn’t stop listening to it in the car,” She revealed to Rolling Stone last December. “I wouldn’t normally be just jamming out to my own tunes. There’s something really uplifting about it that put me in a good mood … It felt very summer and fun, and I was like, ‘I’ll put that on there.'”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31crA53Dgu0&feature=youtu.be
Image: Mary Ellen Matthews
The prerequisite musical acts that arrive at the end of late-night talk shows is either the moment you switch off (mostly Saturday Night Live) or the moment you look forward to to the most (also mostly Saturday Night Live). There’s only so many variations that can be imagined before you realise the only changes being made are the light placements, and maybe the volume of dry ice. Enter Jimmy Kimmel. Or more specifically: enter Sia via satellite.
As the music portion of SXSW 2016 swung into gear, Sia (or Kristen Wiig) predictably blew everyone away. Performing Bird Set Free replete with her trademark black and white wig and a dancer doing his gosh darned best Chandelier impression. What’s more, the performance was beamed into Jimmy Kimmel Live via her Austin set that closed the three day Samsung’s Galaxy Life Fest, Consequence of Sound reported.
It’s a much more engaging and refreshing approach to what can be achieved in a format that never stops clamouring for audience share. It helps having an artist as brilliant and alluring as the Adelaide singer/songwriter.
Bird Set Free is a single off her seventh album, This Is Acting, that consists of songs initially written for other artists but were rejected, presumably in a deeply sonorous way. It’s a rousing and singularly emotive number that left the crowd in raptures. It continues her recent late-night talk show dominance, like her stint on Saturday Night Live.
According to NME, she also revealed details for her first headline gigs since 2011, playing Coachella in April, Flow Festival in Finland, and Sweden’s Way Out West, both taking place on the same weekend in August.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHZwkZAamHM]
Image: American Songwriter
The composer of Grammy Award winning musical Hamilton Lin-Manuel Miranda will release a mixtape featuring Chance The Rapper, Sia, Busta Rhymes, Usher, Ben Folds, Regina Spektor and Queen Latifah. Unofficially known as The Hamilton Mixtape, it will include remixes, covers and other tracks inspired by the musical.
Miranda spoke to Vanity Fair about the exciting project, explaining some of the important details. “People are coming out of the woodwork, knocking on the door. Half the songs are cover versions of songs in the show, and the others are interpolations- we’ll take some of this, some of that, and make something new out of it.”
Although Miranda stars in the musical as the title role of the show, he will not be featured on the tape. “I’m not going to be on it because for me, the goal is to keep this inspired by the original.”
Hamilton won Best Musical Theatre Album at the Grammy Awards two weeks ago (during which Miranda rapped his acceptance speech) and performed at the show. According to Playbill, the cast album also claimed the top spot on the rap and cast album Billboard charts.
“I really wanted the hip hop community to embrace Hamilton because it’s such a love letter to them,” Miranda said.
Watch clips from the musical below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOdWU-EnOEk
Image: Stereogum
James Corden is quickly becoming my favourite late night TV show host. His honest, no-fuss approach is endearing and he is the man responsible for Carpool Karaoke, so I am basically eternally grateful for that.
In his segment’s latest instalment, Corden picks up none other than Sia, who just recently released her latest album, This Is Acting. Wearing her trademark, face-hiding wig, the pair drove around town whilst smashing out some of Sia’s biggest hits including Chandelier, Alive, Elastic Heart and the David Guetta track she features on, Titanium. And if there were any doubts whether her voice really is that good, they are well and truly quashed now after this, as Sia absolutely belts out the hooks of her hits, pushing her voice even more than the original records in some instances.
However, the best part about this segment is the snapshot into the type of person the artist is. Whether it be Adele spitting Nicki Minaj‘s verse on the Kanye West track Monster, or Justin Bieber fooling around picking out Corden’s clothes, the bits in between the songs are just as good, if not better.
In the case of this, Sia gets real with Corden about her decision to hide her face, saying she only wears it when cameras are around. She also detailed the period in her life before that decision, saying she was once an alcoholic and a drug addict, and although clean at the time she started becoming really famous, she found it detrimental to her mental wellbeing. And so it came to be.
Check it out for yourself below, and stick with it to watch Sia’s slightly weird and intriguing party trick where she can hole 12 eggs in her fingers. Yeah, seriously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_RzBeC5ZJY
Sia has dropped a few tracks from This Is Acting over the past few months. Each one made her voice the star as she sang out words of poetry above the beautiful music. With every track, fans grew more and more excited to hear the rest of the album. Now, finally, it’s here.
Did the woman behind the wig live up to our expectations?
The album begins with Bird Set Free, which has been a favourite song of mine since it was performed on SNL last year. The tight ballad was a strong opening; its uplifting sound and encouraging lyrics tell the story of someone who has been beaten down and left hurting as they rediscover who they are and rebuild their confidence and inner strength.
Likewise, Alive tells a similar story of someone who has gone through hell and come out as a stronger person, pieced together with a bright and inspiring sound. The formula seems to work as the single has received a considerable amount of radio play.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2NgsJrrAyM
It’s not a album full of ballads though. We realise this as Move Your Body enters our headphones. The poppy dance track quickly changes the mood, to create a carefree party atmosphere. A small piano solo pushes its way, bearing the words, “your body’s poetry, move your body for me.”
You heard the lady, there’s dancing to be done.
The ballads continue to be broken up with other hits like Reaper, which brings another dynamic to the album. It’s interesting to know that Kanye West wrote this song with Sia, as it bears some reminisce to FourFiveSeconds. It’s stripped down, but still holds on to a rich beat. The difference in the sound makes it stand out among the rest of the album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeM0lzQhigg
This is the same for Sweet Design. If you hadn’t been paying close attention to the album so far, this one will throw you off track. With a slight R&B edge and a soulful sound, the track is completely different to all the other tracks we’ve heard so far. There’s got a lot going on in this highly produced track, but it’s so immersive, you just have to sit and listen to completely consume it.
The final track Space Between is one of my new favourites. The guitar intro has a sinister feel, which carries on when her voice chimes in. We quick realise that it’s a song about giving up on someone that you once loved but have grown apart from. With lyrics like, “we lay hallow in the emptiness//I’m too tried to push you from the bed,” and “the space between is deafening,” we feel the aching pain that runs through the fate of the relationship. It’s amazing how something as simple as words can mean so much. Feel your heart break with every note.
There are two things that symbolise Sia’s artistry; her powerhouse voice and her emotional songwriting. Especially when she sings live, her voice has a raw quality to it that makes people listen. The thunderous power of her voice reigns supreme as she shouts her words that drip with emotion at the top of her lungs, giving the listener all she has. Hiding her face is her way of emphasising what we should be concentrating on.
This is not acting. This is Sia.
Image: Vulture
Yesterday, Adelaide-born pop legend Sia shared a teaser of her newest track Reaper, which was co-written and co-produced by the one and only Kanye West. Now, the full track is available, and it is wonderful.
Reaper has a really different feel to her recent tracks like Alive and Bird Set Free. While we’re accustomed to the Chandelier-esque Sia tracks which feature full-to-the-brim instrumental layers and pristinely-produced pop clarity, Reaper feels raw, stripped back and genuine.
Interestingly, the track really does remind me more of FourFiveSeconds, the remarkably un-Kanye Kanye track featuring Rihanna and Paul McCartney. The raspy yet unfalteringly demanding vocals, the beautifully clean harmonies, and the bare, sing-a-long style rhythms make Reaper really special.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeM0lzQhigg
Sia will be releasing her new album This Is Acting on January 29. The single follows on from previous releases Bird Set Free, Alive, One Million Bullets and Cheap Thrills. A mutt of an album, each track was supposedly written for other artists (including Adele and Rihanna), but ended up back in Sia’s hands.
Kanye, meanwhile, will hopefully be dropping his new album Swish at some point in 2016. Last week he released diss track Facts.