Along with her sister Meg, Frampton was part of the five-piece alternative rock band Meg & Dia. The band released their debut album “Our Home is Gone” in 2005 (at the time the band was just a two-piece) and later released Something Real under Doghouse Records, which peaked at #12 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart. The band found success by promoting their music on MySpace, leading them to become the official MySpace band on the Warped Tour 2006.

In 2010, Warner Bros. dropped the band, reverting the group back to their indie status. Nonetheless, the band released their fourth studio album, Cocoon, which was received positively by fans and critics, but failed to perform well commercially, leading to Dia’s manager, Mike Kaminsky, suggesting she audition for The Voice

Dia Frampton was a contestant (and eventual runner-up) on the first season of The Voice on NBC, introduced as a children’s story author. Frampton stated that she had originally joined the show only with the intention of promoting Cocoon and had not expected that she would make it that far in the competition. She was selected to be on the team of coach Blake Shelton, who stated, “when I heard your voice, I started to smile.” Frampton advanced through the show’s quarter-finals and semi-finales after renditions of “Heartless” and “Losing My Religion”. Notably, the aforementioned singles were the highest charting iTunes digital songs by any contestant on The Voice during its respective voting eligibility period, with “Inventing Shadows” topping the charts at No. 1. Following the season finale on June 29, 2011, “Inventing Shadows” debuted at No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 with 137,000 downloads sold. As of July 7, 2011 Frampton’s The Voice digital releases have sold 480,000 downloads.

Frampton’s single, “The Broken Ones,” was released on November 15, 2011, and her solo album, Red, was released on December 6, 2011. Frampton wrote (or co-wrote) every song on Red. Notable co-written songs include “Billy the Kid”, which she wrote with Mark Foster and Isom Innis, lead singer and keyboard player for Foster the People respectively, “Hearts out to Dry,” which she wrote with her sister, Meg, and “Bullseye,” which she wrote with Isabella Summers, the keyboard player for Florence and the Machine.

Meg & Dia (whose members had joined Dia on the Blake Shelton tour) confirmed their disbandment in October 2012.

She covered the Korean song, “Lonely” by 2NE1, as an acoustic ballad in English for allkpop.com to promote her later concert in Seoul, Korea. On December 30, 2012, she sang a solo of “Heartless” and performed “We Are The Champions” with the final 8 of The Voice of Vietnam. In January 2013, Dia held a small tour, staging concerts across Southeast Asian countries Vietnam, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. She also collaborated with Singto Numchok on his singles “Gift” and “Coffee Mate” in Thailand.

Frampton was featured on “Heart On the Floor”, which is a track on The Summer Set’s new album, Legendary. The album was released on April 16, 2013. She was also featured on Never Shout Never’s Christmas EP, singing “Under the Mistletoe” and on The Crystal Method’s new single “Over It”, which was featured on their self-tiled album on January 14, 2014. As of January 2014, Dia is now the opening act for the James Blunt Moon Landing Tour. On April 29, 2014 Lindsey Stirling released her album Shatter Me on which Dia collaborated on the songs “We Are Giants” and “Shatter Me”. She was also featured in the single “Stay” by Australian DJ tyDi which was released on April 8, 2014.

In June 2014, it was announced that after the release of “Red,” Frampton had been dropped from Universal Republic. It was also announced that her new album would be an EP, and not a solo album but under the name of her new band, ARCHIS. Two singles were released on this EP, “Blood” and “I Need You.” The music video for “Blood” was released on June 2, 2014. In August 2014, Frampton announced that Archis had been signed to a new label, and that the EP would be released in January 2015. The EP was produced by her frequent collaborator Joseph Trapanese.

After the release of ARCHIS’s EP, the band began working on a full-length LP, to be released in early 2016. However, after releasing a personal essay in August 2016 it was revealed that the LP would be released under her own name and would be titled Bruises. Frampton also revealed that the LP would be produced by Dan Heath. On October 5, 2016, she premiered the lead single off the LP titled “Golden Years.” The single was released on October 7, 2016 as part of an EP with the same name, serving as a preview for the LP which was released on March 3, 2017. To coincide with the pre-order of “Bruises” becoming available, Frampton released another single, “Gold & Silver”. After the album’s release, Frampton released music videos for the tracks “Don’t Look Back”, “Dead Man” and “Crave”. The latter two being given official single treatment. Throughout 2017 and 2018, Frampton continued to release music in the form of collaborations and guest appearances with other artists. These include Jason Ross, Witt Lowry, Illenium, Kaskade, tyDi, Dabin and Christopher Tin. Frampton has also pursued acting, appearing in Criminal Minds and several short films. In December 2017, Frampton released “Yule Tunes” as an EP, consisting of 3 cover songs and one original Christmas song – “The Nice List”.

On April 1st 2019, it was announced that Meg & Dia were to reunite for select dates of the 2019 Warped Tour. On July 26th, the group (now a duo, with former guitarist Gimenez returning as a touring member) surprise-released their fifth studio album “happysad” through Pure Noise Records and released music videos for tracks “American Spirit” and “Teenagers”. The group also embarked on the Happysad Tour in support of the record. The group also released a Christmas single, “December, Darling” on November 1st – with the full length “December, Darling” LP arriving on the 15th.