“Taken for Granted” is now ten years old, but with this one’s European success, might she finally be about to get her second UK hit?…
[Video][Website]
[6.00]
Katherine St Asaph: So I guess she wants to be Tracey Thorn now, circa Out of the Woods. Good thing I’m a fan; even better that the clap-claps in the chorus squirt pure joy into my brain the same way the ones in “Telephone” do.
[7]
Chuck Eddy: I have nothing against hand-clapping songs — Shirley Ellis’s would be at least a 9, the Meters’ at least an 8 — but Sia subverts the pattycake and applause potential of hers by cutting its teenybop with weak-kneed and mush-mouthed danceclub r&b delusions. On the other hand, for parts of this, the percussion and the bassline do propel her, more than she deserves.
[4]
Michaelangelo Matos: According to AMG, the two bassists on Sia’s album were Sam Dixon and Greg Kurstin. Since Kurstin is also credited with a half-dozen instruments as well as writing, production, mixing, and engineering, I’ll take the leap to say that his b-line is the reason this thing takes off: gliding and very Chic, energizing everything it comes into contact with. The guitar and synths are choppier, but they move, too.
[8]
Hazel Robinson: I’m pretty sure it’s not the lyric but the only way I could like this Roxy-style piece of disco-melancholy more would be if it was actually shag me out of my misery.
[9]
Anthony Easton: Maybe it’s the video, but I keep thinking about this work as amateurish, in that “let’s get our friends together and put on a show” kind of way. Fond of the track, but I wasn’t on the first few listens. May be too hip for its own good.
[6]
Iain Mew: For a song which attempts to inspire enthusiasm to grab the moment, this is rather lacking in any feeling of urgency. There’s somehting approaching half a groove buried somewhere, but Sia’s nasal voice gets everywhere and turns the song into even more of a featureless mush than it already was, with only the occasional splashes of colour getting through.
[3]
Martin Skidmore: I know she’s been around for ages singing with Zero 7, William Orbit and others, but I’m not especially taken with her voice. I quite like the upper register, but most of it sounds a bit choked and flattened. This electro number bounces along nicely enough, and is reasonably catchy in the chorus, but it doesn’t do a great deal for me.
[5]