Chandelier

This swooping serenade about a party girl's life was the first solo single by Sia in four years, following the release of her 2010 studio album We Are Born. (She did contribute "Elastic Heart" to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack in 2013 with Diplo and The Weeknd). Between the two releases, the Australian singer-songwriter "retired" her solo career and began co-writing hit songs for the likes of Rihanna ("Diamonds"), David Guetta ("Titanium") and Flo Rida "Wild Ones"). She still owed one album on her publishing contract, so she delivered 1000 Forms of Fear, which she figured would go unnoticed. Instead, the "Chandelier" video became one of the most popular offerings on YouTube, and Sia became a sensation. Her plan foiled, she shifted focus back to her own work.

The song is a rejoinder to all those pop tunes that celebrate the non-stop party, with Sia singing about holding on to the party for dear life because she's afraid of how she'll feel when it's over. It is rooted in the now-sober Sia's past struggles with alcoholism. "That's why 'Chandelier' was interesting to me. I wrote the song because there's so many party-girl anthems in pop," she told NPR. "And I thought it'd be interesting to do a different take on that."

The song stemmed from an impromptu jam session between Sia and pop producer Jesse Shatkin. "I usually think, 'Oh this would work for Rihanna, or this would be a good one for B or Katy,'" Sia said to Ryan Seacrest. "But this time I was like, 'Uh oh I think I just wrote a full-blown pop song for myself by accident!'"