Sia – Alive

Polarizing popstar remains polarizing…

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[5.25]Will Adams: I was worried about Sia’s safety on “Chandelier,” but good lord “Alive” makes that song sound like “Frère Jacques.” Sia’s songwriting pyrotechnics (oh the post-choruses! oh the voice crackling!) work better for her than her many clients, but it still seems like a lot of effort just to make sure that no one ever performs this at karaoke.
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Alfred Soto: Or: “There’s a crack in her voice — that’s how the light gets in.”
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Rebecca A. Gowns: Heavy material for radio play, but that’s par for the course for a Sia single. It’s an admirable power to be able to transform suffering (and coming out through the other side) into pop hook melodies. This one doesn’t quite catch immediately; it’s a slow burn. She finally breaks through on the bridge, her voice carrying more resistance and vitality than any of the previous sections. Then on the replay, you hear it: she’s carrying that bomb from the first note, holding it gently against her until she’s ready to set it off. Each chorus comes closer and closer, until you reach that catharsis with her — yes, she’s alive, and you are too–! Her voice breaks with the effort of reaching out to you, trying to break through the arrangement, the radio format, all the constraints of pop and four-chord structure. She makes herself a presence in your room, undeniable, pulsing with yearning.
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Dorian Sinclair: I’ve been a fan of Sia for quite a long time, but I’m a bigger fan of songs where it doesn’t sound like the singer is injuring themselves trying to choke out the chorus.
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Micha Cavaseno: This is the shit I know my fellow reviewers hear when they start hissing and shielding their eyes from ballads. Her voice can do whatever she wants, scream and belt until it undoes the foundations of the building. If only it’d done that for the studio that was helping this garbage song be unleashed on the Earth.
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Thomas Inskeep: What an unlikely pop star, and I mean that as a compliment. Her voice has some grit and texture to it, and her songs do too. I wish I could say the same for her arrangements: I’d love to hear what she’d sound like with, say, Arca behind the boards.
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Patrick St. Michel: Sia’s commitment to this — the way her voice cracks late in “Alive” — is the one element that leaves an impression, but it is a strong one.
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Mo Kim: Diagnosis: vital signs all good, heartbeat strong and steady, lungs the cleanest they’ve been in years. Happy to have you back.
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