Photos of singer Sia. Biography

Multi-level interchanges permeate big cities China with its web. They simplify the lives of Chinese drivers, saving them from traffic jams, but not every non-resident driver dares to climb to the tenth floor level. We've selected nine interchanges in four Chinese cities to take a look at third-level futurism through a photographic lens.

In 30 years, China was able to create the world's largest expressway system. And the pace of their construction is amazing. In 1998-2005 they were , today new roads are being built at a speed of more than 764 m/h. According to National plan According to the development of the road network, by 2030 the total length of expressways will be more than 400,000 km.

1. Tianhe Interchange | Guangzhou

It was built in 1985. It is one of the first such interchanges in Guangzhou.

2. Shahe Interchange | Guangzhou

One of the largest interchanges not only in Guangzhou, but also in Asia. Was launched in 2001. Its construction cost 1,800 million yuan.

3. Interchange near Yangtze metro station | Guangzhou

In Guangzhou, there are no pedestrian crossings at the junctions, and it is prohibited to climb into them. To stay alive, a desperate pedestrian will have to practically stick to the curb the entire way.

4. Interchange near Luhu Park | Guangzhou

Luhu is one of the largest parks in Guangzhou. It features 18 international-class golf courses, as well as the Sea of ​​Stars Garden (星海园), built in memory of the Chinese composer Xian Xinghai (冼星海, 1905-1945).

5. Lujiazui Ring Road | Shanghai

This is not a car interchange, but crosswalk, located above one of Shanghai's busiest intersections. The passage is also known as the "Gallery of the Century" (世纪连廊) or "Ring of the Pearl" (明珠环). From central ring there are ray branches that connect in addition to various sides crossroads, TV tower"Oriental Pearl" and the International Financial Center. The total length is 543 meters.

6. Yan'an-Nanbei Interchange | Shanghai

One of the piles on this section of the Yan'an Expressway is decorated with a bas-relief. According to legend, engineers could not install it for a long time, and in 1995 the mayor of Shanghai asked a Buddhist monk from the Jade Buddha Temple for help. He determined the exact day of work and said that the pile must be decorated with a bas-relief with 9 dragons. It was installed safely, but the monk soon died, as he conveyed the “secret of heaven.”

7. Caiyuan Interchange | Chongqing

The interchange is located next to the Caiyuanba Bridge over the Yangtze River, which was built in 2003. Its length is 1651 meters, construction cost 1,400 million yuan. Thanks to the presence of pedestrian paths and immodest illumination, this is a great place for a date.

The Chinese metropolis of Chongqing never ceases to amaze with its extraordinary engineering structures. In this city, trains pass through high-rise buildings, cars drive right on the roofs of buildings. In addition to this, a couple of months ago there was Grand opening a unique five-level road interchange that diverges in eight directions. One can only guess how many drivers, once on it, missed their turn.

Sia Furler is an Australian pop singer known for her dislike of popularity, as well as for hits such as "Chandelier" and "Elastic Heart".

Childhood

Sia was born on December 18, 1975 in Adelaide, Australia as Sia Kate Isobel Furler. Her father, Phil B. Colson, played different groups, and her mother, Loan Furler, was a singer, musician and songwriter, so Sia was surrounded by music from early age. Sia's father's close friends included members of the band INXS, as well as Colin Hay from Men at Work, whom Sia knew so well that she called him "Uncle Colley."

Sia began performing quite early with the group Crisp, and plunged into the world of Adelaide jazz in the 90s. Encouraged by some success, she decided to start a solo career in 1997, but things didn't work out and she soon decided to move to England with her boyfriend and start over there. But tragic event turned all her plans upside down. A week before she was supposed to leave Australia, her boyfriend is killed by a car. Siya later says that he was the love of her life and his death was a devastating event for her.

First success and debut album

Having moved to England after the tragedy, Sia achieved her first success performing as a backing vocalist for Jamiroquai. On the wings of this success, Siya joins famous team Zero 7, who performed electro music. The group's success forced her to put aside her dream of solo career. However, in 2000, she took a step towards her dream by signing a contract to record several tracks with Dance Pool, one of the divisions of Sony. That same year, her first album, “Healing Is Difficult,” was released, which included such a popular single as “Drink to Get Drunk.” On the other single from this album, "Little Man", English musician Wookie made a remix that became main song everyone dance clubs 2000. Thanks to these two songs, Siya created a lot of noise in the world. musical world and her career took off.

Despite the success, the singer had a conflict with Dance Pool, and she switched to the Go! Beat Records, where she released the mini-album “Don’t Bring Me Down” in 2003. Her next full album « Color the Small One« was recorded after Sia moved to the United States, with the track "The Bully" being recorded together with Beck. The album was not a chart success, but it did contain a song that would revolutionize her career.

"Breathe Me"

Color the Small On featured the beautiful ballad "Breathe Me" that was perfect for the final episode of HBO's Six Feet Under. This song subsequently brought the singer huge success. Sia acknowledged the significance of the song's appearance on the show, saying it brought her "really dying career" back to life. Her "resurrected" career allowed her to go on tour, which resulted in the recording of her first live album"Lady Croissant" Her third album, Some People Have Real Problems, was released in 2008 and debuted in the United States at number 26 on the chart.

All this time, Sia remained a member of Zero 7, participating in the recording of the albums “When It Falls” (2004) and “The Garden” (2006), but the group got tired of constantly waiting for her and in 2009, they replaced Sia to record the next album. The singer began to work independently and this subsequently gave her even more energy to release her own album “We Are Born” in 2010. Shortly before this, she managed to write several songs for Christina Aguilera and her album “Bionic”.

But with success came problems - and she was subsequently diagnosed with Mogil disease. Sia faded from the public spotlight, switching to writing songs for Madonna, Beyoncé and Rihanna, who propelled "Diamonds" (written by Sia) to number one on the charts.

Pop hits and Grammy nominations

When Siya reappeared on music scene, she completely hid her face with a white wig. Tired of being in the spotlight, the singer began appearing in public only in a wig, be it in an interview on television or concert performance. Siya gained enormous popularity thanks to songs such as “” and “”, which made noise in the charts. These tracks were released as part of the album "1000 Forms of Fear", which was released in 2014 and reached number one on the American charts, becoming the most successful in her discography. Sia later received 4 Grammy nominations for the song "Chandelier" in the categories " Best Song of the year", " Best Record of the Year", "Best Pop Solo Performance" and "Best Music Video".

Siya also recorded soundtracks. She has recorded songs for films such as The Great Gatsby (2013), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), Annie (2014) and Fifty Shades of Gray (2015). She also teamed up with music producer David Guetta for the Top 10 hit "Titanium". She also worked with Giorgio Moroder on his pop album Déjà-Vu, and her voice was featured on the title track. IN next year her sixth came out studio album"This is Acting" in which most of the songs were originally written by her for other artists.

Personal life

In August 2014, Siya married the director documentaries Erik Anders Lang. The wedding took place at her home in Palm Springs, California.

Siya is a vegan (strict vegetarian) and animal activist.

Selected Quotes

"If anyone other than famous people knew what it was like to be famous person, they wouldn't want to become famous. Imagine teenagers with computers all over the world with the personality of the stereotypical opinionated mother-in-law. Add everyone to this bored people, as well as people whose job is to criticize and complain about celebrities. Then, imagine these creatures, this force, criticizing you for an hour, once a day, every day, day after day.”

“For me, the process of writing and recording a song is normal, but promoting it is usually... I think Tom Waits compared it to washing dishes (repeating the same thing over and over): talking about yourself all the time, answering the same questions for a trillion magazines, TV show, radio show. And it kind of makes you go crazy.”

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She performed one of the hottest hits of 2014 - Chandelier- and practically blew up the Internet by releasing a video clip for the song last week Elastic Heart . But who is she Sia In fact?

Thirty-nine-year-old Australian pop star ( full name – Sia Kate Isobel Furler) became famous in 2005 when her song Breathe Me was chosen as the soundtrack for the series " The client is always dead", however, fame played with her cruel joke. The difficulties and general tension associated with constant public interest led her to drug addiction. Having survived dark times and having gotten rid of thoughts of suicide, she decided to start over and began to simply write music without performing songs.

Greg Kurstin, a longtime friend and producer of the singer, says: “There is a negative side to being famous. It's very difficult to be the center of attention. She decided to look after her health and what was best for her as an individual. She wanted to be in control of her life."

Sia wrote hits for Beyoncé, Rihanna And Katy Perry. However, in 2011, when she performed as a vocalist in the recording of the world famous hit David Guetta Titanium, her plan to remain in the shadows failed miserably, and she only became more popular. But this time she decided to control the situation, even as a public person.

“She doesn't like being famous because it affects her quality of life. She doesn't want to sacrifice her personal life for fame - fame is for Sia not important at all,” adds David Russell, the star's longtime manager.

So when her singing career was "restarted" Sia I decided to protect myself from everyone's attention. She rarely appears in public, preferring to send her “doubles” there. So, for example, a twelve-year-old Maddie Ziegler from the series " Moms in dance" played miniature copy singers in videos Chandelier And Elastic Heart, and the star of the series " Girls" Lena Dunham, danced for Sia when she sang on a TV show Late Night With Seth Mayers.

And this is not just a marketing ploy.

“She is very unambiguous about the concepts of image and public persona, radically changing them. She breaks these concepts and rebuilds them to suit herself, and wins on this, because at the heart of everything are her wonderful music and extraordinary artistry,” says Tom Corson, President and Managing Director RCA Records, her label.

Last week Sia made a lot of noise with her video for the song Elastic Heart, in which Maddie Ziegler and actor Shia LaBeouf danced inside a giant cage.

Some criticized the video, considering it bordering on pedophilia, but the co-producer of the video Daniel Askill calls such opinions “ridiculous.”

“This is the last thing we could have thought about when creating this project. This clip is open to interpretation. Unfortunately, some people's thoughts turn out to be darker than we expect," says Askill.

Baby Ziegler, which, according to her, Sia became “like a family,” adding: “It was a lot of fun during filming! Shia constantly laughed and joked. Everything was very positive."

Putting aside discussions on the topic of the inconsistency of art, we can say that Sia does everything to protect his privacy.

"You know, she's absolutely normal person. We discuss with her all sorts of TV series about hard life, food and what we like,” says Kerstin. Russell adds: “I’ve never seen her so happy.”

For Sia Things aren't limited to the meteoric rise of her career (she's nominated for four Grammy awards this year). In the summer she married her longtime love - a director Eric Anders Lang.

“That’s why she feels so good now. She is very happily married. Her husband is wonderful, and we are all very happy for her,” says Christening.

The singer's full name is Sia Kate Isobel Furler. She was born in Australia to singer-songwriter Loan Furler and musician Phil B. Coulson.

Fame came to Sia in 2008, after the release of Some People Have Real Problems, although her career began in 1996. Then she collaborated with the indie rock band Crisp, worked with Zero 7, and sang with Jamiroquai.

Sia and movies

Sia's songs often become the soundtracks of popular films and TV series. “The Great Gatsby”, “Twilight”, “The Hunger Games”, “The Vampire Diaries” - were not without sensual compositions. Her music was supposed to accompany the film “Spider-Man 2”, and the singer even posed in a “spider-colored” outfit for the cover of the single. But unfortunately, due to a conflict with the company with which Ferler was collaborating at that time, this plan did not come to fruition.

Sia herself acted in films. She played the role of a singer in a New York bar in the film Jim of Piccadilly.

Your own or someone else's success

Sia is one of the most sought after songwriters. The latter called the compositions she wrote for Christina Aguillera the heart of the Bionic record. She has collaborated with Eminem, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, David Guetta. But Sia’s most famous and biggest hit, written for another artist, is considered the song Diamonds, sung by Rihanna. Surprisingly, the words of the composition, which long time stayed at the top of all kinds of charts, were written in just 14 minutes.

Personal drama

Sia suffered from depression, had preconditions for alcoholism and even tried to commit suicide. And all because tragic death her first love named Dan. Having gone on a trip together, Sia had to stay in Thailand, and her boyfriend returned home. However, a week before the singer’s arrival, Dan died. Alcohol and drug abuse followed, breakdown after recording the song Breathe Me. Sia had to go through full course rehabilitation therapy to regain consciousness.

Illness on the way to music

Sia sometimes cancels her concerts due to feeling unwell. The singer suffers from Graves' disease. This is an autoimmune disease caused by an increase in thyroid gland. Its symptoms are muscle weakness, irritability, and rapid heartbeat. The singer reassured her fans, noting that after the rest she felt better. And the love and appreciation of Russian fans will be able to charge you with even more energy on August 4th.

Residents of Russia will finally be able to see Sia’s legendary productions with their own eyes and listen to her touching and piercing music. It’s easy to arrange a date with a legend - you just need to visit the website. And on the fourth of August, enjoy the Sia concert in Moscow.

Chandelier

The video for this song caused mixed reaction audience. But the fact that he stirred up Sia’s fans is unambiguous. What is the number of views on YouTube worth - more than 1 billion. “ Best video”, “Best composition”, “Best Choreography” - critics and leading magazines responded favorably to Chandelier. Finally, Sia wrote a hit for herself, many of them said, hinting at the success of her songs performed by other singers. The clip is indeed somewhat autobiographical in nature. A little girl dances in a half-empty abandoned apartment - it looks quite strange and gothic. The dancer's costume is a T-shirt, which gives the impression that the heroine is completely naked. Subsequently, Sia said that when her musician parents were on tour, she was left completely alone. Sometimes even without food. Left to her own devices, she spent her time dancing naked around the apartment.

Madeley Ziegler, the one dancing girl, Sia was persuaded to participate in the video through Twitter.