An unreleased Sia vocal, not a 2016 single
“Sia Blinded by Love” most commonly refers to an unreleased recording in Sia’s voice that circulated online around the beginning of 2016. It was frequently grouped with songs believed to have been written during her prolific work-for-hire period and, because of the timing, was sometimes mislabeled as a track from This Is Acting.
The official discography contradicts that album claim. Apple Music’s original This Is Acting listing contains 12 songs and carries a January 29, 2016 release date; “Blinded by Love” is absent. It is also absent from the album’s authorized deluxe track sequence. No reliable label announcement, commercial single entry or official Sia video establishes a 2016 release of her vocal.
That makes “leak” the accurate term for its early circulation, not “premiere” or “new single.” A finished-sounding mix does not prove that an artist or label authorized distribution. Likewise, an old blog’s date can document when that writer encountered a file but cannot establish when it was recorded, pitched or deliberately made public. Unauthorized uploads should not be treated as official listening sources.
The underlying song is nevertheless real and documented. A separate, authorized recording—performed by Natalie Portman for the film Vox Lux—was released on December 14, 2018. That version provides the composition’s first clearly verifiable commercial home.
What the credits establish
Repertoire information associates the composition with Sia Furler and producer-songwriter Fernando Garibay. MusicBrainz’s works index for Sia records a “Blinded by Love” work credited to Furler and Garibay and links performances by Sia and Natalie Portman. The surviving metadata is more complicated than a simple two-name summary, however, because the authorized soundtrack master carries additional production and studio roles.
The label-supplied metadata on Natalie Portman’s official recording credits Sia as composer and lyricist and Fernando Garibay as composer, lyricist, producer and recording engineer. Ramiro and Daniel Padilla are credited as producers and recording engineers; Christopher Braide supplied additional studio production; Cody Tarpley handled additional production, editing and mixing; Tony Maserati also mixed; and Will Quinnell mastered. Jenna Andrews is credited for vocal work and additional studio production, with Janee Bennett and other associated performers also listed. Those details appear beneath the authorized YouTube audio, delivered by Three Six Zero Recordings and Columbia Records.
Credits attached to circulating demo files have varied, which is another reason not to infer a definitive Sia-master release from an unofficial upload. What can be stated securely is that Sia participated in the composition, recorded a vocal that escaped into circulation, and did not commercially issue that vocal as a Sia single or This Is Acting track.
The musical identity of the demo
The song uses one of Sia’s characteristic transformations: a damaged narrator is pulled from emotional darkness into overwhelming light. Its verses rely on images of fragility and confinement, while the chorus turns romantic rescue into the dangerous act of staring toward the sun. Love restores motion, but it also destroys ordinary vision.
That reading comes from the song’s imagery and dynamics, not from a documented explanation by Sia. The central metaphor is deliberately double-edged. Being “blinded” may mean ecstatic trust, loss of judgment or both. The composition’s emotional movement—from paralysis to propulsion—resembles the large-scale pop writing Sia developed for other performers during the 2010s.
The melody is built for an emphatic chorus, with shorter verse phrases opening into sustained notes and repetitions of the title. In the circulating Sia vocal, her rasp and abrupt shifts in intensity make romantic renewal sound almost physically alarming. The vocal’s expressive power probably helped listeners assume that it was a release-ready solo track. Yet performance quality and release status are different questions.
Its absence from This Is Acting is especially notable because that album openly repurposed songs Sia had offered to other stars. Contemporary reviews, including TIME’s assessment of the album’s rejected-song concept, described a project assembled from material intended for singers such as Rihanna, Adele and Shakira. “Blinded by Love” would have fit that narrative aesthetically, but it was not included. Similarity to an album’s concept cannot substitute for a track listing.
How Vox Lux changed the song’s status
Brady Corbet’s Vox Lux follows Celeste, a survivor of a school shooting who becomes a troubled pop superstar. Sia wrote or supplied the character’s pop repertoire, while Scott Walker composed the film’s score. Corbet later explained that the filmmakers examined a large store of unreleased musical material and combined ideas for the production. In a Vanity Fair interview, he specifically described mining unreleased work rather than beginning every number from an empty page.
That process gave “Blinded by Love” a new function. Instead of arriving as autobiography under Sia’s name, it became part of Celeste’s manufactured catalogue. Portman performs it as the opening number of the climactic concert, dressed in geometric stagewear and backed by highly choreographed dancers. Earlier, it is heard in a diner, establishing the fictional star’s ubiquity before the live finale.
Columbia and Three Six Zero announced the soundtrack for December 14, and Pitchfork’s announcement identified Sia’s songs and Walker’s score as its two musical poles. The finished Apple Music soundtrack lists Portman’s “Blinded by Love” as track two and confirms the December 14 release.
NEON, the film’s distributor, subsequently published official soundtrack media for the song, explicitly describing it as music written by Sia and performed by Portman. That wording resolves the central attribution issue. Portman is the artist on the released recording; Sia is its principal songwriter, not the credited lead vocalist.
A song about pop artifice finds its ideal setting
The transformation is culturally apt. Vox Lux asks how trauma, ambition and media spectacle are converted into marketable pop feeling. A song previously heard through an unauthorized Sia file becomes, inside the film, the polished property of a fictional celebrity. Its rescued-from-darkness metaphor acquires an uneasy public dimension: Celeste sells transcendence even as her private life remains unstable.
Vogue’s report from the film’s New York screening noted the impact of its Sia-composed performance material. The concert is designed to be convincing pop entertainment rather than parody. Portman’s voice is processed, layered and supported like a star’s, while the physical performance emphasizes exertion and control.
This does not retroactively authorize the leaked Sia master. Nor should the two recordings be collapsed into one. They share a composition but have different performers, production histories and legal release statuses. Sia’s version remains an unreleased demo or studio recording unless her rights holders issue it; Portman’s is the official 2018 soundtrack master.
“Blinded by Love” therefore has a more revealing history than the supposed 2016 album cut described by old posts. It moved from Sia’s unpublished archive into unauthorized circulation, then re-emerged legitimately as music for a story about how pop identities are constructed. The song was not lost, exactly. It was reassigned—and its new context made its contradictions sharper.