Some People Have Real Problems

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Some People Have Real Problems album cover
Album Information

Total Tracks: 13   Total Length: 59:14

eMusic Review 0

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Kristina Feliciano

eMusic Contributor

04.22.11
Former Zero 7 singer crafts a bitter sweet symphony.
Label: Hear Music / Concord

Like Aimee Mann and Fiona Apple, Sia Furler channels trying times into emotional songs. The problems the Australia-born singer addresses on her third album, Some People Have Real Problems, are indeed real: In “Little Black Sandals,” she's walking away from the guy who was “the line between pleasure and pain”; in “You Have Been Loved,” she recalls the ex who “took away my last hope”; and in “The Girl You Lost to Cocaine,” she finally breaks free from someone who is on his way down. But the tracks, which often start intimate but turn epic, are flush with large-hearted string arrangements, outsized crescendos, and hyperverbal lyricism. Simply put, Some People is too passionate for moping to even be an option.

Sia, who first made a name for herself in the '90s singing with Jamiroquai and Zero 7, is probably best known for “Breathe Me,” which closed out the 2005 finale of HBO's Six Feet Under. The song got her a lot of attention, and she's not squandering the opportunity. On Some People, she flaunts her considerable stylistic range, from blue-eyed soul (as on “Day Too Soon” and her cover of “I Go to Sleep,” written by Ray Daviesread more »

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Electric Bird

Paul78

Really Catchy Tune!

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strange,but certainly true

bonoisatwatt

thanks emusic for this one.great album,its got style,passion,great vocals,and well penned lyrics.its just one of those albums, you know the one's,that even the hardest to please will like at least one track,5stars.check it out.

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Buttons

MissusPoppet

I'll be honest. I got the album because I saw a video of hers for the hidden song Buttons. It was very cool, and the song was great. The rest of the album is very calm in comparison, but still nice. Her voice is a bit warbly, but it's not enough to be irritating. It's nice and an overall good album.

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Has it all

dmtunes

This album has it all. Great vocals, sound and songwriting. Starting with her stint in Zero Seven this is a logical progression of a mature (not old) evolution of an artist. Soon We'll Be Found is a masterpiece I keep coming back to. Download if you have not already.

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Fantastic ...

edwarr

I was initially a bit hesitant on this one, having seen it on the counter at the local Starbucks, but I figured it was worth a try. Wow!!! Easily one of the best albums I downloaded in 2008 and probably the best female vocal album. High praise.

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Awful

EMUSIC-01E3901E

Warbly and affected vocals that seem to drone on and on without respite. I couldn't follow from track to track as she just grows more irritating with each one. What started out as quirky with Zero 7 hasn't progressed anywhere new in the 10 years or so since their hit album. Not so much boring as annoyingly irritating. I'd give it zero stars if i could. Hated it!

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surprised

beatschubiger

I was surprised by the quality of this album. The vocals are a unique a mixture of Kate Bush and Amy Winehouse.

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Bad Track?

jugaluck

There is a 2-3 minute period of silence in the middle of "Lullaby/Buttons". Not sure if this was intended or not.

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Full of character

gennesse

Seeing her and listening to her is amazing. Her big voice in combination with her "litle girl act" has stolen my heart

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Buyer Beware

glenno83

If you like her single 'The Girl You Lost To Cocaine' and you wanted more of the same, then don't buy her album before listening first. Her songs are nice, but they are all far softer and slower than the single being played on the radio. More like Norah Jones than anything else. She is categorised as Rock/Pop, but there is nothing Rock about any of her other songs.

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They Say All Music Guide

Some People Have Real Problems is Sia’s first release on the Starbucks-affiliated Hear Music label, following acts like Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell. Given the burst of attention Sia got when her song “Breathe Me” was used to excellent effect in the final scenes of the series finale of the HBO show Six Feet Under, which brought the Australian singer/songwriter to a much wider audience than was familiar with her earlier work with Zero 7 and Massive Attack, it makes perfect sense. With her old-school soul vocal style, with just a hint of roughness under her delicate high-register tones, set against the contemporary sophistication of her music, Sia is exactly the sort of artist a middle-aged Starbucks devotee who wants to remain at least tangentially hip would flock to: if Amy Winehouse did yoga instead of Jack Daniels, she’d sound a lot like Sia. But fans of Sia’s earlier releases may well be in for a shock: Some People Have Real Problems sounds like a concerted grab for the Mum Rock demographic, those looking for something to listen to while they’re waiting for Corinne Bailey Rae and Regina Spektor to release new albums. Considerably more pop-oriented and uptempo than the chilly electronica that made her name, songs like “Buttons” and “Academia” (one of two songs featuring Beck on harmony vocals; the other, “Death by Chocolate,” also features fellow Scientologists Jason Lee and Giovanni Ribisi) also seem designed to attract the audience that fell for Feist’s “1234.” It would be easy to condemn Sia for such a naked brass ring grab (remember the hubbub over Liz Phair’s self-titled album?) except for one somewhat surprising point: the change actually suits her. The newly varied arrangements, moods, and textures of this album, from the mournful piano-led cover of the Kinks’ “I Go to Sleep” through the horn-based R&B swing of “Electric Bird” to the sarcastic bounce of “The Girl You Lost to Cocaine,” make Some People Have Real Problems Sia’s most engrossing and satisfying album yet. – Stewart Mason

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