The Surprising Story of Sia’s ‘Unstoppable’

By Oliver Tearle

At some point, we’re going to have to have a moratorium on any use of defiant single-word adjectives – especially those ending in ‘-able’ – as song titles proclaiming one’s beauty, prowess, or sheer indomitability. Christina Aguilera gave us ‘Beautiful’ and ‘Fighter’, JFlow was ‘Unbeatable’, Kelly Clarkson and Tinie Tempah offered us ‘Invincible’, while Westlife, Michael Jackson, Alicia Keys, and Kelly Clarkson (again) have all been ‘Unbreakable’.

Sia is one of the latest sirens to throw her hat into this well-worn ring (to risk mixing my metawhatsits), this time (well, in 2016 anyway) proclaiming herself ‘Unstoppable’ (after proclaiming herself ‘Unforgettable’ earlier that same year). She was, of course, previously titanium, so she’s no stranger to this subgenre of 21^st-century music. Free tip though: if you do suspect yourself of being genuinely made of titanium, it’s probably not a good idea to try swinging from the chandelier, unless yours has a particularly robust rod or chain system keeping it firmly attached to the ceiling.

Songs with these empowering one-word titles are easy, lyrically, to write. Ideally, you want lots of talk of how you’ll stop listening to the haters, soldiering on, never giving up, and a whole armoury of similar well-trodden clichés (to use a cliché). The interesting thing about ‘Unstoppable’ is how deftly – in both the song itself and its accompanying video – Sia plays with this rather one-note message of empowerment and shows how hollow and suspicious it can be, especially in uptempo dance songs.

‘Unstoppable’ begins with the singer admitting she smiles in order to fool everyone in the town where she lives: hardly a ringing endorsement for resilience, if you’re starting out by acknowledging that your outward happiness is no more than a mere sham. And what should we make of the idea of putting armour on, as a kind of metaphor? What sort of armour is she talking about? Is this armour-donning designed to show the world how strong she is (in which case, why would one need the armour), or is it to protect her still-vulnerable self from her critics and naysayers?

But it’s in the chorus that the tongue arrives firmly in the cheek. Presumably the ‘no need for batteries’ sentiment is suggested by the ‘power’ pun within ‘powerful’, but is there also a glimmer of a sexual double entendre here, involving ‘playing’ (alone?) without the need for battery-powered toys? This metaphor, in turn, plays with us (or toys with us), vibrating with several different meanings.

And let’s face it, if you’re a Porsche with no brakes, then you’re certainly unstoppable, but you’re also about to crash.

The rest of the song only bears out how fragile the singer’s message of no-nonsense resilience truly is. She tells us she will hide how she really feels and we will never see her true state, the one behind the mask (visor?) that she has put on. It’s only when she’s alone that she’ll let her real feelings of pain and despair come out.

She even admits that she knows this attitude is costing her potential friendships. But she’s ‘too afraid’ to reveal her true self now: the mask has eaten into her face, and that visor is firmly clamped shut.

‘Unstoppable’ may sound like an update of William Ernest Henley’s famous Victorian poem ‘Invictus’, which gave its name to Prince Harry’s sports competition for injured armed forces veterans, but it was with the Olympics that Sia’s song would form an unlikely alliance. In 2016, it featured heavily in ‘Perfect Isn’t Pretty’, a campaign launched by hectoring blade-merchants Gillette and designed to highlight the struggles athletes had to overcome to realise their dream of taking part in the games.

But it was the official video for the song that really shed light on the dubious message of invulnerability the song (ostensibly) pays lip service to. It features the antipodean songstress repeatedly headbutting a succession of glass panes which two men are helpfully holding up for her.

This is less a triumphant smashing of the glass ceiling than a quick and easy way to give yourself a bad headache. It’s self-destructive and also likely to call to mind all of those bad scenes in films and TV shows in which a character with rock-bottom self-esteem catches their reflection in the mirror and promptly destroys the image (usually cutting their hand, or their head, in the process).

In summary, the only thing about the character in the song that’s unstoppable is her out-of-control self-destructive impulse. It’s less an anthem for self-determination (or even just old-fashioned determination) than it is a song about someone who is all-too-aware that the cracks are starting to show but she can no longer reconcile her true, broken self with the smiling, happy-go-lucky persona she presents to the world. With this in mind, it’s ironic that it was co-opted for that Olympics campaign, unless headbutting glass surfaces was an obscure sport at the Rio games which I somehow managed to overlook.

Lyrically, the song is a bit of a hodgepodge – (medieval) armour, luxury sports cars, dildos (maybe) – but this melange of historical and contemporary references only reinforces the singer’s disordered state of mind. This is not somebody in control, but someone off the rails – or the road. Or about to be, at any rate, when that Porsche careens into the nearest tree.