Sia vaulted back into the top ten on the Hot 100 last week, as “Cheap Thrills” jumped from No. 13 to No. 8. Sean Paul appears on the single – though not on the album version that arrived in January – and this aided the song’s progress, since American listeners routinely thirst for tropical pop hits during the summer months.
But fleet dancefloor-friendly fare is not actually Sia’s favorite mode. Her comfort zone is the power ballad, and she shared another one of those last week as well: “Waving Goodbye,” a collaboration with Diplo. The song was made for Nicolas Winding Refn’s new movie The Neon Demon.
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“Waving Goodbye” is an easy mix of both artists’ styles. Diplo buttresses Sia’s vocals with a simple up-to-date beat, in the same way he did on Usher‘s “Climax.” Sia sticks to the type of mid-tempo belting that made her a solo star in America. Listen below.