No.7 Owl City- All Very Twinkly

Layers. That's the most prominent feature obvious at a glance (although frankly it's pretty hard to glance with your ears) in the music of Owl City. The whole image created by Adam Young originated from the sleepless nights of an insomniac while living with his parents in 2007, the music used as a diversion to sleeping. Obviously these diversions were much better than Young ever realised as when he eventually uploaded the finished products to Myspace, they attracted an almost surprising amount of attention leading to a record deal with Universal bursting on to the Techno scene in the same year.

As is often the case, many people only ever know the most popular music and since Owl City have only broken into the Pop charts with Fireflies and Good Time, these are the songs always quoted by those unacquainted with the artist. For me, these are not representations of his work as a whole; I personally prefer his older work like Maybe I'm Dreaming. While more recent works are much more wide ranging (both vocally as well as instrumentally) and technical featuring collaborations with artists such as Mark Hoppus from Blink-182, this record is much more stripped back to the very twinkly basics. There is little variation in vocal range and the tranquil, whispering tones of Young stand as a stark contrast to his more modern work.
Some may see this as lack of imagination however I think it shows good diversity between this and newer albums such as The Midsummer Station with West Coast Friendship a particular highlight for me.

I urge you to delve deeper into the works of Owl City, beyond the likes of Fireflies and Good Time as these barely scratch the surface. Don't be that bigot who claims that "All that techno bollocks is the same, all they do is sit there at the computer tapping away". It's much more complicated than you may think.
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