Adam Young is Owl City. Adam Young is also, sad to say, a bit of a pop music genius. The kid made one of the best albums of last year and he supposedly did it in his bedroom. on his laptop. while getting noise complaints from the neighbors.
Recently, it came out that he was in another “band” when he was even younger. That “band” was called Sky Sailing and it’s basically just Owl City with real instruments instead of synths. The reason that this has become recent news is because a major record label has actually bought this album from Adam and is planning on releasing it at some point. Kinda crazy.
Anyhow, its not nearly as good as his Owl City incarnation, but its worth a listen.
Owl City stands out from the rest, both lyrically and production-ally, but that whole post-emo electronica pop punk seems to be the hottest way for unsigned teenage singer/songwriters to get their music to the masses besides singing with their acoustic guitar on their webcam. It definitely isn’t an easy production concept to master, but it is the ultimate in digital technique. Just goes to show that one day more artists will be endorsed by Apple than by Gibson.
So here are a couple of other unsigned artists who have that type of sound and you might like to dig deeper into.
owl city write’s some sappy songs, but he does seem to have a gift for lyrics. and in the middle of the night, after a few beers, sometimes they just need to be listened to. so, to those of you who are awake, and needing a song. enjoy.
I may be a jew…but i love christmas songs. and since y’all seem to love Owl City so much (and i tend to agree with that enjoyment) i figured i’d make everybody happy by posting Owl City’s christmas song. you can thank me later.
“i believe that jesus is truly the only way. and i celebrate christmas because its his birthday.”
I don’t think I gave Owl City a fair chance upon my first listen to their single, Fireflies. I’ve now listened through the entire album a few times and I really dig it. He does try a little hard to be creative with some of the lyrics, but overall, the kid does have a gift for crafting a witty pop song. Thought I’d include a few b-sides (well they are b-sides for now, who knows, maybe they’ll be singles one day) for you guys to hear since Owl City seems to be quite popular with y’all.
If I didn’t know what I was listening to, I would have thought this was a new Postal Service song, but alas, Ben Gibbard is focussing all of his time on Death Cab For Cutie. I really wish he would do a second Postal Service album because that album was fucking amazing and pretty much turned Death Cab into the powerhouse that they are today.
So, now there is some kid who probably has a name but instead goes by Owl City who is playing music that sounds exactly like the Postal Service. It even has quirky lyrics like Gibbards, though not even close to as beautiful, deep and clever. KROQ has jumped on board with Owl City, which typically means something, but I have a hard time thinking this guy/band has much staying power. It’s too 2003. Emo/electric/pop. Just can’t imagine blasting this one while rolling through the ghetto as I tend to do on the weekends. But check the song and let me know what you think.
so who wants to take Oct 15th off of work and drive to SF with me to see Manu Chao and then drive back for the Cal game on Satrday at noon.
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