Artist: Owl City

Album: All Things Bright and Beautiful

Record Label: Universal

Soundwaves: 1.5/5

Sounds Like: ‘Fireflies’ stuck on repeat

Adam Young, the keyboard-toting brains behind synth-pop project Owl City, lives in his own bizarre rendition of ‘The Twilight Zone.’ It’s a place where lightning bugs are trained in ballroom dancing, every track is accompanied by rejections from the Nintendo sound effect assembly line, and song titles that pair unlikely nouns together. (What exactly is ‘Vanilla Twilight?’ or ‘Alligator Sky’?)

Though Owl City’s debut, ‘Ocean Eyes,’ was endearing in it’s own quirky way, ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ dials the cutesiness meter up to disastrous levels, an effort that sounds like a cross between Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory and the newest release in the Kidz Bop family. The album drowns in its own sweetness by poorly penned lyrics that fend off all prospects of reality in the Adam Young Zone.

The first warning signs blare incessantly in the opening track’s uninspired keyboard melodies and a chorus in which Young croons, ‘Reality is a lovely place/But I wouldn’t want to live there.’ From the first bleating synthesizer that comes crashing into the verses, it’s clear that Young refuses to stay grounded in reality for the remainder of the album. Whether the listener likes it or not, the next eleven tracks are part of Adam’s World.

Young’s attempts at charming wordplay fall flat on ‘Deer in the Headlights,’ a catchy love-at-first sight song that sounds more like a restraining order against Owl City put to a bouncy beat. ‘Dreams Turn to Dust’ replicates the almost too familiar instrumentals of chart-topper ‘Fireflies,’ featuring a lackluster chorus and sleepy verses that sound as if they were recorded right after Young woke up from a nap.

Even the guest vocalists sound like they don’t want to vacation too long in Young’s fairy-tale warped album. After laying down a few unremarkable verses in faux orchestral lead single ‘Alligator Sky,’ hotshot emerging rapper Shawn Chrystopher must’ve collected his paycheck and bolted for the door before having to endure another lazily written chorus, courtesy of Young. ‘The Yacht Club’ features about ten full seconds of indie sweetheart Lights, and instead focuses on Young’s adeptness as a wordsmith with lyrics like ‘I’d rather fall in chocolate than fall in love.’ Most artists co-write songs with surefire hit-makers. But it looks like Owl City handed the pen over to a local kindergarten class.

Young takes strange lyrical turns into both the inanely childish and seriously dull, tarnishing any validation he has as a songwriter. ‘Hospital Flowers’ is meant to be a sorrowful ballad, but whiny sounding synthesizer chords overshadow any heart wrenching vocals. Young finds a way to make an interlude inappropriate on ‘January 28, 1986,’ which oddly samples a speech about the crash of the space shuttle Challenger, paired with some plaintive vocalizing from Young. Especially since the track is wedged between ‘Galaxies,’ a religious club-friendly track about being an astronaut, and ‘Kamikaze,’ a bizarre stab at an edgier vocal delivery, it seems like Young’s attempt at injecting meaning to his album went terribly awry.

Sure, reality might not be a place where Young would want to live, but until there’s an alternate universe littered to the brim with Owl City’s cutesy imagery, he might as well unpack his bags and stay awhile. ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ is a brief vacation away from reality, but so is a quick stint in an insane asylum which may not be a bad alternative to listening to Owl City’s latest sorry excuse for an album.

ervanrhe@syr.edu

Published on June 21, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Erik: ervanrhe@syr.edu | @therealvandyman