Sia has always been a churn-’em-out kind of songwriter – on occasion, taking less than 15 minutes to pen a track. Continuing down the path of least resistance, the Australian musician has made an album of Christmas songs.
“It’s not like you have to have an original idea to begin with,” she explained in a recent interview. “It’s like, Christmas, mistletoe, ho-ho-ho, Santa Claus, Christmas list, elves.” It’s not the most encouraging approach to songwriting, and the resulting album, a grab-bag of seasonal tropes that takes in snowflakes, puppies and candy canes, sounds suitably dashed off. Even if it sometimes amuses – Snowman is a love letter to a melting beau – there’s a tendency towards repetition that seems lazy (Snowflake covers practically the same topic as Snowman; there is a bombastic ballad called Underneath the Mistletoe – and another called Underneath the Christmas Lights). That carelessness, combined with Sia’s mewling, monotonous and oddly Scandi-accented vocal, means Everyday Is Christmas is unlikely to win over any nonbelievers.
