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Owl City

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Location: Owatonna, MN

Websites:

• http://myspace.com/owlcity
• http://owlcitymusic.com

Bio: It’s hard to imagine how much better things could get for Adam Young right now. When the shy 23-year-old first uploaded a few synth-pop songs ... (more) on to his MySpace profile in 2007, his Owl City project was just one of thousands of unknown acts in the web’s worldwide hive of musical activity. Two-and-a-half years and one EP, two albums and over 50 million MySpace hits later, Owl City’s ‘Fireflies’ single hit the No. 1 spot on the U.S. Billboard charts in early November 2009. It had already sold nearly two million copies, been No.1 in the U.S. iTunes chart, and been officially declared the fastest-selling electronic/alternative track of all-time. Its parent album, the self-produced ‘Ocean Eyes’, has nestled happily in the U.S. Top Ten since its release in July, and, after confessing that playing his first shows left him with ‘white knuckles’, Adam is now confidently playing sold-out shows to a crowd who are, as The NME observed, ‘made up mostly of young girls, who, impressively, know every single word to every single song’ and that ‘squeals and shrieks with the kind of delight usually reserved for buffed-up boy bands’. The shy boy’s dreamy DIY imaginings have become a bonafide pop phenomenon.

But even a cursory listen to the gorgeous synthetic gems on ‘Ocean Eyes’ reveals why Owl City has struck such a universal chord. Young has fashioned an elegant and seemingly effortless connection between fashionably arty, retro-nouveau electro pop and the kind of fresh-faced, sweetly melancholic hit factory songwriting that you can imagine being sung by X Factor contestants a few years down the line. Let’s be frank – even our favourite 21st century synth-pop has had a hint of raised eyebrow reference-heavy irony. Owl City pop has a purity of purpose – an innocence – that breathes fresh air into the electro-pop revival.

The key, perhaps, lies in Young’s emergence from a non-musical family in Owatonna, Minnesota - a small-town which has no music scene to speak of. Owl City music sounds like a sparkling wintry day in a place full of nature, rather than electronic music’s usual urban nocturnal vibe. It also makes an escapist magic out of an experience shared by all kids raised in small towns – the retreat to the lonely bedroom where one creates a world of adventure to combat the quiet and boredom that surrounds you. As Young sings with such happy anticipation on Fireflies: ‘A fox trot above my head/A sock hop beneath my bed/A disco ball is just hanging by a thread.’ The eternal nightclub of the mind perfectly defined.

So Young is now looking forward to bringing his live show to The UK in February, following November 2009’s release of the warm and witty reinvention of prime Giorgio Moroder that is Umbrella Beach. The tour ties in with the unleashing of the Fireflies phenom on unsuspecting Brits, and the release of the Ocean Eyes album on March 1st – a blissful first-day-of-Spring treat to pull us all out of our winter funk.

‘I can't believe how fast things have taken off,’ Young marvels. ‘It seems like it was only yesterday I put a few songs from my first EP online and watched things begin to happen on their own. I never thought music could spread like mine did through the internet. I guess it's just another testament to the power of technology and communication. I do know one thing though: I just wanted to keep creating. It's a lot of fun and it's the only thing in the world I'm good at. So it'd be a real shame to stop.’ (less)