How are we
supposed to judge the quality of music today? Is it in the rhythm? Or is it the
lyrics? Or is our society so twisted, that we aren’t even using the correct
tools to determine the strengths and weaknesses of music? Society has fallen
into the trend of critically analyzing others by their physical appearance.
Unfortunately, this is beginning to affect the musical world as well. Artists
like Sia Furler are trying to combat against this new forum of critiquing music
where society is assessing music and musicians based off of their visual skills
and not their auditory skills.
Social
psychologist Chia-Jug Tsay, who is also an amazing pianist, conducted a study
to expose how the judgment of musical performances is based off of what people see
and not what they hear (Fulcher, 2013). At the beginning of his examination he
asked the participants whether they believed the visual or auditory aspect of
music was more important. Obviously the assumed answer, and the one that most
people replied with was “how it sounds” (Fulcher, 2013). Then Tsay presented them with three videos in
two different ways. The first set of videos was only an auditory recording, and
the second set was the musician’s performance with sound and video. They were
asked to guess the winner. With both styles of the three, the majority of the
participants guessed correctly (Ball, 2013). Yet when Tsay exposed them to a
silent video, with only visuals, they weren’t as successful in guessing the
winner. They based their answer off what they saw and forgot about the quality
of sounds they heard. This is why society is so twisted today.
Why can’t
everyone stop judging people based off looks? Why aren’t we following the
wonderful values our parents and teachers taught us? We aren’t supposed to
judge a book by its cover yet that is what we are doing. As a performing arts
fanatic, I find it repulsive that most people are hooked on musicians based on
what they are seeing and not analyzing the elements that make the music so
special. My love for the actual piece of art created, and not for the looks or
the mannerisms of the artists, are all values I uphold that made me fall in
love with Sia Furler. Not only is Sia an amazingly gifted musician and musical
writer, but also her outlook and motto mirror my same beliefs.
Sia Furler, age 38, began her solo
career in 2000 when she released her first album, “Healing is Difficult” and
also collaborated with many artists, helping them write songs for many
well-known tracks today. What fans and peers didn’t realize is that her musical
capabilities were only one of her most prized attributes. The piece of her that
her peers and fans should be mimicking is her perspective on the world of music
(Moore).
As her early career days began to
push her to the top of the fame ladder, she found that her new world presented
her with some fatalities as well as challenges. After losing her loved one in a
fatal accident, she fell into drug and alcohol addiction (Moore). Her unhealthy
behavior didn’t last for long though.
Sia turned her life around, and was in her own way, reborn into the musical world. Sia released her album “1000 forms of fear” which exposed hit tracks “Chandelier” and “Elastic Heart” (Moore). Although there was no question that Sia’s songs were unique, people did question why she concealed her face. Who’s the girl behind the paper bag? Why won’t she show her face?
After
having the same questions myself, I did some research to find out why.
Fortunately, she has been interviewed many times on this topic and each form of
the answer she gave was pure. Her idea of not showing her face, whether it is
hidden under paint, a paper bag, or her blonde wig, is that she wants her
audience to focus on the art not the artist (Goldstein, 2014). Sia has
never, and will never, want to be famous. As Goldstein worded it, “Sia wants to
be not-famous, but for something” (Goldstein, 2014). Sia wants her art to count
and that to be in the spotlight, not her face. Sia has expressed “I don’t’ want
to be critiqued about the way I look on the Internet” (Willis, 2015).
She is well known for her blonde wig
and hidden face, yet is this in some way drawing more attention to her rather
than less attention? Is this her way of pulling us into her fan circle in hopes
of her exposing her face during a live performance? She claims that all she
wants is to have “some control over [her] image,” but can’t she do that while
still showing her face (Keirans, 2015)?
I can’t help but think that she
should be able to show her face without being scrutinized. Instead, we should
be the ones with the paper bags on our heads. We need to muffle our judgmental
eyes and solely use our ears to grasp the true meaning of music and focus on
the only important aspect of the music: the sound of the art, not the look of the
artist.
Works Cited
Ball, Philip. "Musicians' Appearances Matter More than
Their
Sound." Nature.com.
Nature Publishing Group, 19 Aug.
2013. Web. 24
Sept. 2015.
Fulcher, Hallam. "Musicians Judged on Looks, Not
Sound."
Musicians
Judged on Looks, Not Sound. N.p., 22 Aug. 2013.
Web. 24 Sept.
2015.
Goldstein, Jessica. "The Celebrity Who Won’t Show Her
Face."
ThinkProgress
The Celebrity Who Wont Show Her Face
Comments.
N.p., 20 May 2014. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.
Keirans, Maeve. "Sia Covers 'Interview' Magazine In A Giant
Wig,
Explains Why She
Never Shows Her Face." News. N.p., 30
Mar.
2015. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.
Moore, Tony. "Sia Furler Biography." Bio.com.
A&E Networks
Television, n.d.
Web. 24 Sept. 2015.
Willis, Charlotte. "Sia's Face Hidden Under Wig All The
Time:
Here's the Reason." News.com.
N.p., 21 Apr. 2015. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.
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