By Kaitlyn Paschke
All eyes have been on Sia Furler, who goes by her stage name Sia, this year. She released a new album titled “This is Acting” in January, performed at Coachella and is even set to go on a headlining tour this year all while hiding her identity under gigantic wigs.
She had signed with RCA Records because they were the only record company willing to work with her and the fact that she wanted to hide her identity and not have to deal with touring and promotions.
“This is Acting”, Sia’s seventh studio album, was released January 29. It was full of songs that she created for other artists such as Beyoncé, Adele, Rihanna and Katy Perry that were never used. When asked about how she chose the title, she said, “I’m calling it This Is Acting because they are songs I was writing for other people, so I didn’t go in thinking ‘this is something I would say’. It’s more like play-acting. It’s fun.”
The album debuted at number one in Australia, her home country, and reached number four on the Billboard 200. The album sold 81,000 equivalent-album units in the first week, 68,000 of which were from pure album sales, helping the album to become Sia’s highest first week sales in the US.
There were two weekends of Coachella in April, where Sia was a headliner both weekends. This was not just special because it was Coachella, but also because it was Sia’s first full concert set since 2011. This is surprising because although she has been performing since the 90s, she only began her rise to success in October 2013 when she released “Elastic Heart” for “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” soundtrack.
At Coachella her performance was supplemented with onscreen dance routines by Kristen Wiig, Paul Dano and “Dance Moms’” Maddie Ziegler. The thirteen song set included her hits “Alive,” “Chandelier,” “Elastic Heart” and Rihanna’s “Diamonds” which she had written.
With a few shows in the US throughout the early summer, the main part of her tour will be during August where she will be traveling to Russia, Denmark, Israel and Sweden just to name a few, after that she will return to the US to finish out the “Nostalgic For The Present Tour.”
Part of Sia’s look is her face-covering wigs. But why does she wear them? In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres on her show she said, “It’s so I can go to Target and buy a hose if I want to or if I’m in very in need of a restroom and I can’t find one then I can go by the side of the road and nobody would be following me with a camera trying to get the shot.”
In another interview with Ryan Seacrest she used a Styrofoam doll head wearing a wig similar to her signature half blonde half black face-covering wig. Although nobody could see her over the radio on his show for KiisFM, she still wanted that privacy when the video went up on his YouTube channel. On this interview she shared that she liked her anonymity and her privacy.
“I appreciate that my music is famous but I would rather that my face wasn’t.”
