Sia unleashes single co-written by and for Adele
Before the huge success of Sia’s hit ‘Chandelier’ and the accompanying album 1000 Forms of Fear Sia focused more on songwriting for other artists for a while. She co-wrote wordwide hits like Rihanna’s ‘Diamonds’ and Ne-Yo’s ‘Let Me Love You (Until You Love Yourself)’ just to name a few. This inspired her to record an album full of songs co-written by herself, but which were intended for other artists. As the tracks are written from the perspective of someone else, Sia sees it as a form of acting to perform these tracks and that’s why the album is called This Is Acting. The first single, called ‘Alive’, was co-written with Adele and it was initially intended for her upcoming third album, but in the end Sia recorded this huge pop anthem herself.

With 1000 Forms of Fear the Australian singer-songwriter went down a more poppy route and she keeps following this line with ‘Alive’. Actually, the song is sonically quite close to ‘Chandelier’. Both are anthems with a big singalong chorus, but I have to be fair and admit that ‘Chandelier’ had a stronger hook. That chorus is a gift that keeps on giving while ‘Alive’ is more of the repetitive kind. ‘Alive’ however, has a great build-up with a middle eight that stunningly builds up to some vocal acrobatics with raw edges and a lot of emotion in the grande finale. It would have been interesting to have heard Adele do this, but it fits Sia’s larger than life vocal style perfectly and although it’s not as strong as the fantastic ‘Chandelier’, it will be another hit for her.