One of the highlights of the 57^th Grammy awards was the live performance of Sia’s breathtaking rendition of her track Chandelier that got many in the audience scouting for the singer on stage. No one could really find her. Facing the wall as she sang Chandelier and mixed it with Elastic Heart, Maddie Ziegler and US actress Kristen Wiig performed a dance to her songs on the stage that featured a messy room. Ziegler and Wiig wore matching blonde bob wigs and stripped down to basics by the end of the performance to nude bodysuits. Sia it is known never likes to reveal herself in public and also never likes being photographed.

When she arrived at the awards ceremony, Sia wore a large blonde wig covering her entire face.  But things changed after her performing her hit song Chandelier live with her back to the audience, she let her guard down backstage at the Staples Center in LA giving photographers a chance to snap at her as she made her way through the corridors, laughing and giving a full glimpse of her face, her bright red lipstick and real hairstyle. The 39-year-old Australian musician was spotted being escorted by an assistant and bodyguard through the backstage area, wearing the same white dress and heels she took to the stage in.

It was an incredibly rare sighting of the pop star that usually opts to hide her face due to her unwillingness to be in the spotlight. Sia has also appeared on a number of US talk shows concealing her face. With star status such as hers, it is strange that a pop singer of her position would want to adorn a mysterious identity. But if one had to read her biography carefully, it would emerge that she has a shy personality, fears fame, so much so that the success that came her way which she could not handle almost made her take her own life while battling addictions to alcohol and drugs and struggling with depression. 

Sia in a report is stated to have said that she is not interested in the fame that comes with being a successful musician, especially after her personal battle. “It's horrible, I just wanted to have a private life,” she said. Let’s probe her career in detail to find out what the real Sia truly is.

Sia Kate Isobelle Furler dropped her full name and came to be known by her stage name Sia. Born on 18^th December 1975, in Adelaide, South Australia, to parents Phil Colson, mother Loene Furler, a musician and an art lecturer respectively, she attended Adelaide High School and finished off in 1994. In the early 90’s she was interested a career as a singer and performed with a local band called Crisp. Sia collaborated with the band and contributed vocals to two albums, their first being Word and the Deal (1996). Sadly the album really never made a mark on her career. Soon after releasing the second album ‘Delerium’ (1997), which once again flopped, Crisp disbanded.

With a little bit of luck on her side and a record label to back her, she released her debut studio album ‘OnlySee’on an Australian record label. Following this, Sia moved over to London, and joined the British duo Zero 7 where she provided vocals for a few tracks on their first three studio albums. On Zero 7's 2001 album ‘Simple Things’ Sia contributed vocals to two tracks, Destiny and Distractions. The single Destiny peaked at number 30 on the UK Singles Chart.

In 2001, she signed a contract with a sister concert of Sony Music - Dance Pool, where she released her second studio album, ‘Healing is Difficult.’ The album lyrically deals with the death of Dan her first love from the band Crisp. Her first single Taken for Granted peaked at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart. The album had a blend of retro jazz and soul musical styles and lyrically discussed Sia's dealing with the death of her first love affair. Common to many a singer, the label did not promote her as she expected, with the result the album did not meet the expectations the young singer – songwriter expected.

She moved on and signed to Go! Beat another record label, a subsidiary of Universal Music Group (UMG) where she released her third studio album, ‘Colour the Small One’ in 2004. Prior to this, at the APRA Awards of 2002, Sia won the Breakthrough Songwriter category alongside Brisbane pop duo Aneiki’s Jennifer Waite and Grant Wallis.

But her album was going nowhere. The album met with a similar fate and did not connect with her intended fan base. But it did make a dent on the charts. The album sidelined her earlier work and was an amalgamation of acoustic instruments and electronic sounds. It brought out the singles Don’t bring me down and Breathe Me.

While releasing her own albums, she also provided vocals for her previous band Zero 7 on songs like Somersault and Speed Dial No. 2 (from the album ‘When it Falls’). She also provided vocals for the group's third album, ‘The Garden’ a few years later. Sia is regarded as the "unofficial" lead singer of Zero 7. While living in London, she also performed as a background vocalist for British band Jamiroquai.

The Big Apple was her next grounding point where she hoped it would make her what she always wanted to be. In 2005 she moved over to New York. Her track from her last album, Breathe Me appeared in the final scene of the American HBO’s television series “Six Feet Under” which helped increase Sia's fame in the United States. The same time Sia's new manager, David Enthoven, set up a tour across the country to maintain her success. She released her fourth studio release, the title of which seems quite meaningless ‘Some People Have Real Problems’ in 2008.

The album ‘Some People Have Real Problems’ peaked at number 41 in Australia and was certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association. In the US, it charted at number 26 on the US Billboard 200 becoming Sia's first album to chart in the United States.

‘Some People Have Real Problems’ yielded four singles. The lead single, Day Too Soon, was released in November 2007 and peaked at number 24 on the US Hot Dance Club Songs. The second single, The Girl You Lost to Cocaine released in early 2008 peaked at number 11 in the Netherlands and number 12 in Spain, while it reached number 8 on the US Hot Dance Club Songs.

A year earlier, Sia released a live album ‘Lady Croissant’ which included eight live songs from her April 2006 performance at the Bowery Ballroom in New York.

In May 2009, Sia released ‘TV is my Parent’ on DVD format, which includes a live concert at New York's Hiro Ballroom, four music videos and behind-the-scene footage. At the ARIA Music Awards 2009, she won in the Best Music DVD category for ‘TV is my Parent’. She also received a nomination for Best Breakthrough Artist Album for ‘Some People Have Real Problems’.

In 2009, American singer Christina Aguilera approached Sia for writing ballads for her then upcoming sixth studio album ‘Bionic’, where Sia is credited with three songs. Later in 2010, she also co-wrote Bound to You for the soundtrack for the American film ‘Burlesque’ which starred Aguilera and American singer Cher. The song was nominated for Best Original Score at the 68^th Golden Globe awards.

In June 2010, Sia's official website announced that her promotional events and shows had been cancelled due to her poor health. Sia is known for her panic attacks and was also diagnosed with Graves’s disease – an autoimmune disorder with an over-active thyroid.

Recovering from all this, in June 2010, Sia released her fifth studio album, ‘We are Born’. The release peaked at number 2 on the ARIA album charts and was certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association. We Are Born was preceded by three singles: the lead single, You’ve changed that charted at number 31 in Australia followed by Clap your hands which became the album's best-charting single, peaking at number 17 in Australia, number 10 in the Netherlands and number 27 in Switzerland.

At the ARIA Music Awards 2010 ‘We Are Born’ earned Sia two categories and she won for Best Independent Release and Best Pop Release. A year later she received a nomination for Song of the Year for Clap Your Hands. To promote her new album she embarked on The We Meaning You Tour, and visited North America and Europe in April–May 2010 and later embarked on the We Are Born Tour, which visited Australia in February 2011 and North America in July–August 2011. Back home, in March 2012, she released her first greatest hits album ‘Best of ... ‘

Following this album she decided to retire from a career as a recording artist, to start a career as a songwriter. She wrote the song Titanium for American singer Alicia Keys, who did not use it but it eventually found its way to dance EDM artist David Guetta. who included Sia's original demo vocals on the song and released it as a single in 2011. Titanium was a huge commercial success worldwide, peaking within the top five of record charts in the United States, Australia and numerous European regions. Guetta was happy about this new found success, but for Sia it was the other way round. She issued a statement saying she was “trying to be a pop songwriter, not an artist”.

Sia, whose shy and withdrawn personality was at odds with her public persona, began to struggle with the pressures of fame. Around 2011, she became addicted to alcohol and drugs and almost committed suicide before a phone call from a friend persuaded her to enter rehab instead. She spent the next few years out of the spotlight, continuing her parallel career as a songwriter for the likes of Madonna, Britney Spears, Flo Rida, Beyonce, Celine Dion, and Rihanna the latter with whom she wrote the worldwide number one smash hit Diamonds.

Coming slowly into the spotlight she once shied away, she made a wave of success for herself only in 2014 with a new album. Prior to that, in October 2013, Sia released Elastic Heart featuring The Weeknd and Diplo for the soundtrack of the American film “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” (2013), In July 2014, Sia released her sixth studio album,’1000 Forms of Fear’ that debuted atop the US Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 52,000 copies. The album also peaked at number 1 in Australia and reached the top ten of charts in numerous European regions. It was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry and gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association.

The album had hit material like the lead single Chandelier that peaked at number 8 on the US Billboard Hot 100 becoming Sia's first entry as the lead artist on the chart. Chandelier met with instant success for its infectious melody and outstanding music video. Her other singles include Fire Meet Gasoline, Eye of the Needle and Big Girls Cry. The album is said by Sia to be much more pop than her previous records. ‘1000 Forms of Fear’ was released so she could be freed from her record deal and simply write for other artists, but the album's success has spurred her to continue writing her own music.

At the 57^th Annual Grammy Awards (2015), Sia received four nominations for Chandelier: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Pop Solo Performance and Best Music Video. As mentioned earlier, at the Grammy awards this year where she performed, she chose not to show her face, either facing away from audiences or hiding it behind over-sized platinum blonde wigs.

So moving after her album Sia contributed to the soundtrack to the 2014 film adaptation of the Broadway musical “Annie” Sia, along with producer Greg Kurstin wrote three new songs for the film as well as re-worked songs originally from the musical. Sia, Kurstin, and Annie director Will Gluck were nominated at the 72^nd Golden Globe Awards for Best Original Song for one of the film's original songs, Opportunity.

In May this year Sia did a cover of The Mamas and the Papa’s super hit California Dreamin’ from the movie “San Andreas”

Sia's music incorporates hip – hop, funk and soul as a base for her vocal styling. No one might really know, but in 2014, she was ranked the 97th richest Australian person under the age of 40 by a magazine with a reported net worth of AU$20 million.

Sia is a vegan and a well known volunteer of PETA activities.

In August 2014, Sia married documentary filmmaker Erik Anders Lang. She is currently working on her seventh studio album This Is Acting.

By Verus Ferreira