The recording behind a misleading label
Search for “Sia Freeze You Out” and the results can suggest a lost Sia single from 2016. That description is enticing, tidy and wrong. “Freeze You Out” is an officially released Marina Kaye recording, written by Sia Furler and Chris Braide. A Sia-sung version circulated without authorization after Kaye’s release, but it never became an official Sia record.
The reliable chronology begins on May 18, 2015, when Kaye’s debut album, Fearless, was issued in France. Contemporary retailer FNAC dates the album to that day, while Apple Music identifies “Freeze You Out” as part of Fearless. Kaye’s own website likewise places Fearless in 2015. These sources establish the commercial recording before the January 2016 blog posts that treated a Sia vocal as new music.
That later file is best understood as a songwriter’s demonstration recording, although no first-party source has publicly described its precise studio history. Sia’s version may document how the composition was presented or developed, but its circulation did not confer release status. It should not be linked or embedded as though it were an authorized single, outtake or addition to Sia’s This Is Acting campaign.
Sia wrote it; Marina Kaye released it
Kaye was a teenage French singer with a remarkably adult instrument when Fearless arrived. She had won La France a un incroyable talent in 2011 and built her recording debut around “Homeless,” a dramatic single that became a major French hit. “Freeze You Out” offered a conspicuous international-pop credential: Sia was then one of the industry’s most sought-after writers, capable of moving songs among artists while maintaining an unmistakable melodic vocabulary.
The documented composition credit belongs to Sia and Chris Braide. Braide’s résumé includes songwriting and production across polished British and American pop; his work with Sia predates the public fascination with her unused demos. Apple’s track metadata credits Sia, and contemporary French coverage repeatedly identified the song as her work. In a 2016 interview, Kaye told Teen Vogue that it was the only song on the album she had not written, explaining that Sia had written it for her. That firsthand statement is more probative than filenames attached to later uploads.
Kaye did not merely borrow a composition already famous in Sia’s voice. She was its first official recording artist. Time included “Freeze You Out” in its survey of songs Sia wrote for other performers, explicitly categorizing it under Marina Kaye. The distinction resembles the traditional relationship between songwriter demos and masters: a guiding vocal can be historically interesting without becoming the released work.
A song built around emotional temperature
Musically, “Freeze You Out” is characteristic of the mid-2010s Sia ballad without simply replicating “Chandelier.” Its central metaphor turns guardedness into climate: intimacy requires a frozen heart to thaw. The verses restrain the melody, then the chorus widens into longer notes and repeated commitments. That expansion gives the singer a physical task—the emotional opening is enacted through breath, register and volume.
Kaye’s performance is unusually weighty for a singer who was 17 when Fearless appeared. Her lower phrases are dark and controlled, while the hook exposes the grain at the top of her voice. The production surrounds her with piano, percussion and increasingly broad pop textures but leaves the vocal as the principal dramatic event.
This is musical interpretation rather than documented authorial explanation, but the song’s structure invites a reading about choosing vulnerability rather than suddenly losing fear. Its narrator does not claim to be healed. She promises to remain present despite anticipating pain. That nuance separates the piece from a generic empowerment anthem: courage is framed as repeated behavior, not a triumphant personality trait.
Hearing an unauthorized Sia vocal can make Kaye’s phrasing seem derivative because a powerful demo often contains the composition’s melodic blueprint. Yet resemblance is not evidence that Kaye imitated a public performance. A demo exists precisely to communicate melody, cadence and emotional direction to the eventual recording team. Chronology matters: listeners encountered Kaye’s authorized master first.
From album track to French single
“Freeze You Out” initially arrived inside Fearless, not as a Sia release and not as a January 2016 surprise. The campaign subsequently elevated it as a Kaye single. French coverage from January 7, 2016 described her as then launching “Freeze You Out” from the album. A separate retrospective gives January 6 as its single date and reports a peak of No. 69 in France, while the official SNEP radio document later logged it in the French radio ranking during May 2016.
The visual campaign followed. Kaye’s official artist channel published the Alexandre Saltiel-directed video on March 25, 2016. The video’s frozen landscape literalizes the title without pretending to show Sia: Kaye stands at the center of the presentation, just as she does on the record. Contemporary broadcaster Europe 2 reported the video’s arrival two days later.
Those stages—May 2015 album release, early-2016 single promotion and March video—explain why dates attached to the song conflict. They mark different events. May 18 is the first verified commercial appearance; January belongs to its promotion as a single; March belongs to its official video.
Why the Sia attribution persists
The confusion intensified because Sia’s This Is Acting arrived on January 29, 2016. That album was openly built from songs associated with writing sessions for other singers, so any Sia-sung demo appearing online around the same period could be mistaken for a discarded album track or an unofficial extension of the project. Old blogs also tended to publish leaked files under the vocalist heard in them, with little attention to ownership or release history.
“Freeze You Out” fits Sia’s songwriting profile closely enough to sustain the illusion. Its repeated central phrase, escalating chorus and fear-to-release narrative all resemble techniques heard across her solo catalog and outside commissions. That aesthetic fingerprint supports an authorship discussion; it does not rewrite the discography.
The defensible catalog entry is therefore straightforward. Marina Kaye released “Freeze You Out” on Fearless. Sia and Chris Braide wrote it. Kaye later promoted it with an official single campaign and video. A Sia vocal circulated unofficially, but no verified Sia label release, sanctioned upload or artist announcement turned that recording into a Sia single. Calling it “unreleased Sia” may describe fan-library organization, but it is not an official status.
That correction does not diminish Sia’s role. It reveals it more accurately: “Freeze You Out” is evidence of her influence not only as a star performer, but as a writer whose musical identity could travel through another singer’s voice—and occasionally cause the demo to overshadow the master it was meant to serve.