Monday, February 15, 2010

Owl City - Ocean Eyes

Adam Young had insomnia while working for a Coca-Cola warehouse. Coincidence?!? We think not! However, this affliction turned into a creative stream of self-produced music videos that Adam recorded in his parent's basement in their home in Owatonna, Minnesota. He uploaded them to his MySpace page, building a steadily growing fan base and allowing him to self-produce and release his music. Creative therapy for his insomnia, indeed!

The practical outflow of this was that he was 'discovered' by Universal Music and released his third CD, Ocean Eyes - his first major label release - last year and saw his tune "Fireflies" climb to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and in the UK charts as well.

As I have said before, I'm not a great fan of electronica/dance but there is an engaging and infectious quality to Adam's music that I believe is universally appealing. Then there is the fact that the CD is currently on sale at HMV for a mere $9.99 and you have an irresistible musical antidote to the winter blahs.

The reality of pop music like this is that it often has a short shelf life, but Adam has something real and substantial happening here and I think this CD might yield a couple tunes that will climb into my medium rotation. The real potential lies in the fact that Adam is so young and has so much more time to develop as an artist. The mind boggles at the possibility. I'm not given much to predictions, but this man has possibly a very bright future in scoring movies. A Grammy might be hard to achieve, but an Oscar may definitely be in the future for Adam Young one day.

As long as he can still dream and realize those dreams into his unique musical vision - insomnia notwithstanding.

If you haven't heard/seen "Fireflies" then here you go:

"Fireflies"

Shalom

PS

Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood created a live concert CD/DVD package of their 2008 collaboration concert series in Madison Square Gardens. It's on my "to buy" list and will be the subject of my next review.

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