Çarşamba 16 Ara 2009, 23:07

#14 – Owl City – Ocean Eyes

Owl City was the first fun album of the year for me. Incidentally, I also “discovered” it twice. The first was through radio. As it always is, I completely missed composer or title but heard a bright, electro-pop song and immediately thought that the Postal Service had finally released a long awaited follow up to Give Up. (Lead singer Adam Young’s voice has more than a slight resemblance to Ben Gibbard’s). I forgot about it for a week, then while searching around the internets, decided I like the description of Owl City and checked out the recommended song, “Fireflies”. Immediately I recognized it as the song on the radio and consequently could not get it out of my head for quite awhile. For every moving, intricate opus in your collection, it’s always nice to have a nice piece of pop that keeps things light and makes you smile. Ocean Eyes will do that to you. It’s pure bubblegum pop mixed with a synthesizer and whimsical lyrics. Such combinations as “Swallow a drop of gravel and blacktop cause the road tastes like wintergreen” (“Cave In”) or “When hygienists leave on long vacations, that’s when dentists scream and lose their patients” (“Dental Care”) won’t leave you feeling profound but I’m sure you’re bound to grin like an idiot. Mixing up the pop songs are some ballads scattered here and there where there is more straightforward piano and the various electronic elements are toned down (but not completely left out). As fun as the album is, there are some detriments. While some songs you can forgive for just having fun, some border on downright childish. “Dental Care” is very cute, but more in the way that I’d expect to hear it played on a PBS children’s show than pop radio. And listening to more than three of these songs sequentially may also you leave you feeling a little queasy, in the same sense that you just loaded up on too many cookies without knowing when to stop. Taken in small doses however, Owl City will defiantly rest amongst your more angsty songs, ready to brighten your mood whenever you’re tired of being dark.

- Highlights -
“Fireflies”
“Cave In”
“Hello Seattle”
“Vanilla Twilight”

- Lowlights -
“The Bird and the Worm”
“Dental Care”