Colour the Small One


 * "I see your true colors" — Cyndi Lauper

Colour the Small One is the third studio album by Australian singer and songwriter Sia Furler, released under the mononym Sia, on 19 January 2004 in the United Kingdom and 3 February 2004 in the United States.

Background
In 2001, Sia released her second studio album, Healing Is Difficult. However, unhappy with the album's promotion and charting, she made the decision to fire her manager, leave Sony Music and sign to a new record company: Go! Beat Records. The album's first single, "Don't Bring Me Down", failed to chart globally, but the following singles, "Breathe Me", "Where I Belong", and "Sunday" did.

When the second lead single "Breathe Me" was used in the series finale of the TV Show Six Feet Under (aired on 21 August 2005), the album went through a re-release on 10 January 2006 in the U.S, with an expanded version with 16 tracks including "Broken Biscuits" and "Sea Shells".

A deluxe edition of the album was released in the UK on the digital retailer iTunes. This version included three extra tracks which were taken from "Don't Bring Me Down - EP". The tracks included were the following: "Broken Biscuits" "Lucky" and "So Bored", disregarding the track "Sea Shells" which was included on the United States' re-release.

There were two major cut tracks for this record. The first being an unfinished interlude titled "Flowers", and the second being a ballad titled "This Shit", possibly made for the U.S re-release of the album. It is currently unknown why these tracks were cut from it. "You Have Been Loved" is another cut track, later featured on Sia's fourth studio album, Some People Have Real Problems.

Release and promotion
The initial Australian version of Colour the Small One had eleven tracks, with "Butterflies" added for later versions. The track "Don't Bring Me Down" was issued as the lead single in Australia in late 2003. It was repackaged as a four-track extended play, Don't Bring Me Down, for UK release. When it was released in 2004, "Breathe Me" was the first single across most markets outside Australasia, whereas "Don't Bring Me Down" was second. "Breathe Me" reached No. 71 on the UK Singles Chart in May 2004, whilst the third single, "Where I Belong", reached the top 100. However, the fourth single, "Numb", did not appear in the chart. Colour the Small One reached the top 200 on the UK Albums Chart. In promotion of the album, Go! Beat Records provided a "making-of" video. Music videos were shot for two tracks, "Breathe Me" and "Sunday", while an animation was made for "Numb". A music video was later shot for "Don't Bring Me Down", but employing the live version which would appear on the 2007 live album Lady Croissant.

Critical reception
Colour the Small One received generally favourable reviews according to Metacritic website's rating of 77 out of 100 based on 15 professional critics. AllMusic's Jon O'Brien noted that Sia's "hushed, intimate vocals are surrounded by acoustic folk-tinged electronica". Pitchfork's Chris Ott found the album's "downtempo kaleidoscope of pain and progress is unable to hold on to all that it reaches for, but delivers moments of brilliance and daring". Carmine Pascuzzi of Mediasearch described Sia providing a "spark to the acoustic/chilled tastings of today" with a "more experimental" album than Healing Is Difficult.

Trivia

 * This album features nature sounds, including that of birds, which no other album of Sia's has.