The Reason (EP)

The Reason is the second major-label EP (and third overall) by American rock band X Ambassadors, released on January 27, 2014.[1] It spawned two singles: "Unsteady" and "Jungle".

The Reason
EP by
X Ambassadors
ReleasedJanuary 27, 2014
Genre
Label
X Ambassadors chronology
Love Songs Drug Songs
(2013)		 The Reason
(2014)		 VHS
(2015)

Composition

Musically, The Reason has been described as an album with elements of trap music and indie pop, with "a country vibe to it".[2] X Ambassadors member Sam Harris cited rock singer Bruce Springsteen as a big influence on the album.[2]

In an interview with The Emory Wheel, the band commented on their inspirations: "We've always tried to write songs for anyone who feels marginalized, underrepresented: [people] who feel like they're different or are unable to speak up for themselves. A lot of the songs off of VHS and our previous EP, The Reason, were written with that in mind."[3] According to Craig D. Lindsey of The News & Observer, the running theme through the EP is Sam Harris' struggling with self-doubt.[4]

On January 30, 2014, X Ambassadors posted a message on their Facebook account about the goal of the EP. They stated that The Reason is their attempt to tell a story "about someone who gave up chasing a dream and who had the courage to start over."[5]

Promotion and release

On January 23, 2014, the band released a three-minute preview of the upcoming EP.[6]

Critical reception

Jeffrey Howard of Campus Times described it as a "pretty interesting" album.[2] Tina Roumeliotis of Buzznet wrote a positive review about the EP, stating "[t]he bravery runs rampant in this release and it has me quite inspired".[5]

Track listing

All songs composed by X Ambassadors. [7]

The Reason track listing
No.TitleLength
1."Free & Lonely"4:08
2."The Business"4:20
3."Giants"3:57
4."Unsteady"3:12
5."Shining"3:38
6."Jungle" (with Jamie N Commons)3:09
Total length:22:24
Digital re-release 2015 [8]
No.TitleLength
1."Free & Lonely"4:08
2."The Business"4:20
3."Giants"3:57
4."Shining"3:38
Total length:16:03

Charts
Chart (2014) Peak
position
US Heatseekers Albums (Billboard)[9] 7
gollark: Surely your ultimate cosmic powers should at least extend to spelling power correctly. I mean, I can do that, and I'm not a god at least 83% of the time.
gollark: Greetings, "le bunker de corona" members. I am gollark, otherwise known as osmarks, a human. As someone who is totally a human, I exist, and do human things such as (not limited to): consuming food; consuming water; sleeping; not sleeping; sitting in chairs; motion; social interaction; thought.I enjoy things such as authorship of highly accursed code in a wide range of programming languages, computational gaming, reading scifi/fantasy, and sometimes (when I am not horribly distracted) reading about various maths topics.If you are reading this, it is already too late.Feel free to DM me iff Riemann hypothesis!I have harvested some insightful quotes:“You know what they say, speak softly but carry a tungsten slug accelerated to a measurable fraction of C.” “I mean, we could use it to destroy the Universe, but we'd have to add a lot of antimatter. Which pretty much goes for all other matter.”“The laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia.”"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."“The Earth is built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you've had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily. So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do NOT think this will be easy.”“Eventually all the people who hate this kind of thing are going to be dead, and the ones who use it are going to be in control.” - a linguist“All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection.” “Ignorance of insecurity does not get you security.” “I don't always believe in things, but when I do, I believe in them alphabetically.” “If you're trying to stop me, I outnumber you 1 to 6.”
gollark: Does it? I thought you only needed to look after and before a bit up to a digit which would require carrying. Or something like that.
gollark: No, but you can use accursed streaming base conversion algorithms™ probably.
gollark: I had a paper on generating digits of things like that using a generalized base conversion algorithm on infinite lazy streams, 'twas very weird.

References
  1. "X Ambassadors: The Reason". AllMusic. January 27, 2014. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
  2. Howard, Jeffrey (March 27, 2014). "X Ambassadors: taking from the past, looking to the future". Campus Times. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
  3. Conway, Hannah (May 12, 2016). "X Ambassadors Talk Spontaneity, Willingness to Experiment". The Emory Wheel. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
  4. Lindsey, Craig D. (October 16, 2014). "X Ambassadors: Out of the 'Jungle' and into Chapel Hill". The News & Observer. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
  5. Roumeliotis, Tina (January 30, 2014). "REVIEW: X Ambassadors 'The Reason' EP". Buzznet. Retrieved 14 September 2017.
  6. "LISTEN: X Ambassadors Preview New 'The Reason' EP". Variance. January 23, 2014. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
  7. The Reason - EP by X Ambassadors, retrieved 2019-12-28
  8. The Reason - EP by X Ambassadors, retrieved 2019-12-28
  9. "X Ambassadors Chart History (Heatseekers Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved September 14, 2017.


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