‘Saturday Night Live’ music: Sia performs ‘Alive (I’m Still Breathing),’ ‘Bird Set Free’

In many ways, we feel for Sia as a musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend. After all, she had to try to get attention in the middle of the shadow that was Donald Trump hanging over the rest of the show.

This good news is that Sia is a pretty accomplished, amazing performer. She also has some of the most unique performances that we’ve seen on the show. Tonight, we got to her from her “Alive (I’m Still Breathing),” a song that she performed with interpretative dance (of course) and also the help of a choir. She hit all of her notes, but above all of that she created a nice atmosphere. At this point in the show, what we were really hoping to have above all else was breathing room, a chance to get away from the Trump of it all. In that sense, we’d consider this a success.

Did it top some of what we’ve seen from Sia on the show in the past? Probably not, but we also have a soft spot for “Chandelier,” one of our favorite songs from the past several years.

The second song from Sia was “Bird Set Free,” which to us definitely had the same sort of emotional feel as some of her other great songs like “Chandelier” and “Elastic Heart,” but it didn’t have the same sort of hook to it that we will remember.

In the end, tonight was a solid outing for Sia as musical guest; if nothing else, she can take credit for being a better overall performer on this show than host Trump, who really seemed to be playing it far too safe.

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