Ironically Sia’s desire to stay out of the spotlight backfired after she submitted demos for “Titanium” and “Wild One” to superstar dance music producer David Guetta, finding out “on Twitter” that her versions made it on his album, despite originally being meant for Alicia Keys.

“That was not supposed to have my name on it,” she told Howard Stern of “Wild One,” back in June of this year. “‘Titanium’ was the first one I wasn’t supposed to be singing on—I wrote that for Alicia Keys—and then Mary J. Blige cut it, and then [Guetta], without telling us, he just took her vocal off and put mine back on, my demo vocal.

“Because I’m not a fan of EDM… I was thinking ‘Fuck, all of my fans are going to be like ‘What the fuck?’ And then my manager was like ‘Oh, okay, this has happened. I think it would be bad politics for us to make them take it off of the record, because they pressed all the albums, and blahty-blah’ and also, I like David. He’s so nice. How could he know that I didn’t want [to be on the record]. Everybody thinks that everyone else wants to be famous.”

Sia’s latest album went to

#1 on the Billboard 200

Guetta, who hosts a party and has released a series of accompanying compilation albums called Fuck Me, I’m Famous (there are nine volumes), addressed the evolution of “Titanium” in October of 2011. “The first time I heard what Sia did, because she was not in the studio with me, I fell in love with it… I didn’t even want to give it to anyone else; it was perfect the way it was.”

Both “Titanium” and “Wild One” became genre-defining hits of the stateside electronic dance music explosion of 2011–12, with the former being her biggest song to date, certified platinum in several countries. Despite Sia’s attempt at maintaining a low profile, fame found her anyway.

The David Guetta incident was the sort of happy accident that has led to the release of 1000 Forms Of Fear, Sia’s sixth (!) album, yet her first to land at #1 on the Billboard chart. This is her first “pop” record, as in the past she took a more indie approach, with album titles like Some People Have Real Problems, the cover featuring her scribbling on her own face with magic markers.

Sia’s recent Billboard cover: peeling away the decal reveals her face

By contrast, the cover to 1000 Forms of Fear doesn’t feature Sia’s face at all, just her most marketable feature—her blonde hair — over a black silhouette of her face. Anonymity is the angle this time around, as she recently performed on VH1’s Soundclash with her back to the audience, while various performance artists with blonde wigs lip-synced and interpreted her lyrics. She also appeared on the cover of Billboard with a brown paper bag over her head that read: “This artist is responsible for 12m track sales, has a new single on The Hunger Games soundtrack & doesn’t want to be famous.” Peeling away the decal reveals her face, a clever marketing tactic designed to address Sia’s reluctance towards being thrust into the image-centric pop music machine.