The Singles Jukebox

Now I’m just imagining mashups of their older songs… “Breathe Me” vs. “Get Busy”? No, that wouldn’t work…

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[3.43]

Will Adams: ANTI sure dodged a bullet, huh?
[3]

Lauren Gilbert: It certainly sounds like it was written for Rihanna. I can also see why she rejected it; it is entirely too commercial to work on ANTI. Despite the lyrics about rejecting commercialism, it sounds like it was designed to climb the charts; it’s more “No Love Allowed” than “Work”, a certifiable banger with just enough island flavor to sound “exotic.”  Part of that may be Sia’s delivery; she’s not even trying for patois (which is frankly a relief), but it makes this sound exactly what it was: a Rihanna reject sung by someone with much less charisma and power in her voice. Sia can still write a hook, but a hook isn’t a song.
[4]

Jonathan Bogart: As a singer, Sia has one mode: dramatic ominousness. You’d think that might conflict productively with a song about partying, but the end product is just deflated and confused. Sean Paul lets the air out of the song just by doing exactly what he’s done for the past twenty years, so Sia just sounds out of place, a buzzkill at her own party.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: Hearing this white Australian sing over a cod-Jamaican beat doesn’t work; there’s no rhythmic frisson here. It might as well be a Casio keyboard “island” preset. Sia is like a synthetically generated popstar made in a lab, incapable of expressing personality or emotion, which makes her a perfect pairing with Sean Paul, a record exec’s idea of the ideal dancehall artist, guaranteed never to offend. I strongly disliked his run of hits in the ’00s and his pop-ins on “Cheap Thrills” do nothing to change my mind.  
[2]

Cassy Gress: This sounds so much like a Rihanna song (or specifically “what a pop songwriter thinks a Rihanna song sounds like”) that it’s sort of hard to hear Sia singing it and not hear it as demo for Rihanna. Sia and Sean Paul sound like they’re in two different hemispheres; Sean Paul is even mixed noticeably lower than her (maybe he’s outside Sia’s club trying to get let in). Sia’s voice can be sort of nasal and droney, and Sean Paul is great at droneyness too; together the two of them just sound sleepy.
[4]

Brad Shoup: Every song about balling on a budget has to contend with “The Way I Are.” All Sia fights with is dancing, and that’s, like, most songs. When she sighs about dollar bills it’s more an opt-out than a gesture of resourcefulness. The kids yelling the chorus were imported from some New Wave tune; Sean Paul steps out of a time machine, a little woozy. If dancing’s so important, the beat would step better.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Soon one of Sia’s people will remark, quietly, that singing over a Casio calypso preset with Sean Paul as collaborator was as ill advised as Jeb Bush taking the high ground when Donald Trump appeared.
[2]