Tuesday, March 8th, 2016

Sia ft. Sean Paul – Cheap Thrills

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


[Video][Website]
[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]

Reader average: [5.4] (5 votes)

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10 Responses to “Sia ft. Sean Paul – Cheap Thrills”

  1. “Sia is like a synthetically generated popstar made in a lab”

    Of all the criticisms one could lodge against Sia, this is probably the least valid. Unless you’re talking about the way she’s singing on this particular song and album, which, yeah okay

  2. Well, I think this is the most unanimity I’ve seen in TSJ blurbs outside of a CRJ post.

  3. Sean Paul’s legacy is his immortalisation in the various incarnations of Baby Boy’s bridge whenever Beyonce decides to go on tour. Foil to the endless hooks in Got 2 Love U, the perfection of She Doesn’t Mind.

  4. also “Temperature,” which is a perfect song, and “Gimme the Light,” which is almost a perfect song

  5. Sean Paul has heaps of perfect songs.

    Also BREATHE BY SEAN DE PAUL AND BLU CANTRELL REMIX GON MAKE YOUR HEAD SWELL

  6. I miss Sean Paul’s massive crossover appeal. The Trinity was a masterpiece and they played Temperature at literally every school dance I went to in ninth grade and it was glorious

  7. I mean, he mostly got over b/c VP Records didn’t want to push Kartel, despite being an infinitely more popular artist in his home but then again *checks news bulletins* perhaps that was more or less reasonable… *prepares tea*

  8. Aaaaaand almost 4 months later, this is the new #1 song in the U.S., knocking off “One Dance” no less!

  9. in retrospect i probably would have lifted the average on this a full half-point had i gotten to it on time

    love this

  10. really like this song