You might know the musician Owl City from his hit single “Fireflies” off his freshman record album Ocean Eyes back in 2009, or maybe you know him from his collaboration with Carly Rae Jepsen in the song “Good Time”. But not a lot of people have actually listened to a lot of the Owl City discography, which I think is a shame since he has produced so much good music. Owl City is one of my top five favorite artists, so I wanted to talk about his upcoming concept album “Cinematic” releasing on June 1st.
Adam Young is the name of the musician who goes by the name Owl City. His music is fairly poppy but doesn’t fit into just that genre. The majority of his songs electronic based, featuring lots of synths and beat pads which Adam sings over, although there have been some guitar oriented songs with rock and country influences. Most of his songs are upbeat, although many are emotional and tell stories. Young has been making music way before his first album released with a label, he had produced multiple projects and albums before which ended up getting him the deal. Some albums that I would recommend form Adam’s early career include Owl City’s Maybe I’m Dreaming and the album An Airplane Carried Me to Bed by Sky Sailing (a different name Young went by).
While half of the new album Cinematic has not yet been released, nine songs have already been featured in three different EPs called reels to build up to the album release. As you might be able to tell from the title, but the album is movie themed and is in a sense, a documentary of Adam’s life. This project is nothing like anything he has done before, but from the released songs, it already sounds great. In my opinion, the coolest part of it is how Adam integrating past sounds and musicals styles into his new music in order to tell his stories, yet still evolving and experimenting with new sounds.
Some standout tracks that have been released so far include “Fiji Water” which talks about him signing his first record label, and “New York City” which tells the tale of Adam’s first big road trip. Both these songs have very reminiscent sythes but have a unique style which makes me want to sing along. The song The 5th of July stands out because it is focusing on Adam’s birth, which is a cool concept that I have never heard explored before. Finally, Lucid Dream experiments with a trance edm style beat that builds up to a magical chorus, this song shows how Adam has matured as an artist and expanded his sound.
Owl City has always been meaningful to me because of the beauty and magic his songs invoke, and I hope you can look forward to the release as well and share some of the positivity.
