"Unsteady" is a
ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...
by American
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...
band
X Ambassadors
X Ambassadors (also stylized XA) are an American pop rock band from Ithaca, New York, that consists of lead vocalist Sam Harris, keyboardist Casey Harris, and drummer Adam Levin. Russ Flynn is a touring member who plays guitar and bass. Their m ...
. It was originally part of the band's second EP ''
The Reason'' and was later released as the third single from the band's debut studio album, ''
VHS
VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s.
Ma ...
'', on October 13, 2015. The song has a remix version entitled "Unsteady (Erich Lee Gravity Remix)", a single for the motion picture soundtrack for the film ''
Me Before You.
Composition
In an interview with ''Best New Bands'' frontman Sam Nelson Harris discussed the main inspiration for the song
According to the sheet music published at MusicNotes.com, the song is written in the key of
B minor
B minor is a minor scale based on B, consisting of the pitches B, C, D, E, F, G, and A. Its key signature has two sharps. Its relative major is D major and its parallel major is B major.
The B natural minor scale is:
Changes need ...
, with a tempo of 58 beats per minute.
Accolades
"Unsteady" was nominated for
Top Rock Song at the
2017 Billboard Music Awards
The 2017 ''Billboard'' Music Awards ceremony was held at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 21, 2017. The list of nominees was announced on April 10, 2017. Non-televised awards were announced on ''Billboard'' website the same day a ...
.
Music video
Influenced by the song’s theme of divorce, the music video follows a couple at two points in their relationship: the moment they fell in love, and the moment they knew their relationship was over. The song shows how habits that may have been "fun and spontaneous" when young can turn into serious problems when they begin to affect an adult family life where children can be influenced by those choices.
The video was directed by ENDS (
Zack Sekuler and Daniel Iglesias Jr
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Decade-end charts
Certifications
References
{{X Ambassadors
2015 singles
2015 songs
2010s ballads
X Ambassadors songs
Kidinakorner singles
Interscope Records singles
Song recordings produced by Alex da Kid
Songs written by Alex da Kid
Alternative rock ballads