So, last week brought some great news – Sia just hit the Billboard No.1 with her song “Cheap Thrills”! The song slowly but finally made its way from No.3 to the coveted spot by replacing Drake’s “One Dance” (sorry, Drake but you’ve had your glory time already!). It’s time we give the queen her due credit. And, as the realization dawn upon us that this is actually Sia’s first Billboard mainstream top-40 pop songs number one hit, it also comes as a total surprise as we have been screaming our hearts out to “Chandelier” all this while and yet this laurel has been won only now. However, there are a number of other reasons that this song makes us ponder about how important Sia actually is in today’s music scene.
How Sia has achieved this with a Rihanna-reject song, is exactly what Sia stands for in music today. She is the artist who is singlehandedly proving to the world that music doesn’t need a face or a larger than personality backing it. When Sia decided to make an album with her songs rejected by other artist, it came with the load of skepticism. Instead, her artistic prowess is breaking down every notion held in pop culture history. Not only did she go on to become one of the only artists who seldom appears in her own videos (which are nothing short of pop culture gems), she now has become the only female artist in her 40s to achieve a Billboard No.1 hit in 16 years since Madonna last did it! This goes to show just how much Sia means to female empowerment in music business and age positivity.
Sia has been in the industry forever, but it is only now that she is getting her much-deserved attention. This also indicates about how listeners are responding to mainstream music these days, how the music business is shifting. Listeners today are keener on listening to the music rather than being here for the star-quality. They are willing to give new artists a chance regardless of their glamour quotient. The same plane where a Taylor Swift is thriving, artists like Sia are also making a difference. And, somewhere down the line, she has become the face of this revolution, all this while being on the stage with her face covered genially behind a veil signifying how she is ready for the challenge to break the stereotypes, to be the woman in her 40s who has just given the younger artists a run for their money.
