Review - Owl City - Shooting Star EP

Owl City is right up there in my favorites with Sara, so I can’t believe they came out with EPs within 3 days of each other. Talk about an exciting week for me.

Owl City’s last album ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ showed those of us who love him for what he does that he is not a flash in the pan – he is going to do what he does, and that the definition for “success” may just have to change. Though the album actually peaked two spots higher than his ‘Ocean Eyes’ album two years before it (which contained the surprise #1 smash “Fireflies”), the album failed to chart a single, although it tried five times. No matter – I, and so many like me who are really die-hard fans – loved the album, and it was generally applauded.

When I heard that for his next full length, Adam Young was going to be working with some big name producers and songwriters, I got scared. Would he really give up on the synthpop he had cultivated and that made him huge just to keep his major label contract and in the hopes of more radio play?

While ‘Shooting Star’ doesn’t have anyone else except Young producing and writing (though it does feature Mark Hoppus of Blink 182 as a guest vocalist on “Dementia”), it shows that he can manage both. The EP is a departure from the sugary-sweet sounds and lyrics that he has been known for, but it thankfully isn’t a departure from himself. The album is unlike anything we’ve heard from him before, and that’s kind of why I love it. He has shown that he can clearly do the whole cutesy-synthpop-animal-reference thing, but what else? Artists grow and try new things, and I think as long as they are true to themselves and their voice, it’s alright.

‘Shooting Star’ is kind of a hodgepodge of what he could be doing next. Opening track and first single “Shooting Star” is much more dance heavy, while “Dementia” is very pop punk (very fitting, seeing as who is singing along with him). Every song brings a new direction, a sampling of what his new album could sound like. I don’t know which it is going to be, but I really love every song, so no matter which way it goes, I’m there.

WAIT. THOUGHT. What if he kicked it into overdrive and wrote THREE new albums and they all came out one after another, each one showing him in a slightly different genre than the last? And then he toured on all of them? And he saw me in the crowd and invited me out later that night and we had a magical date and he kissed me in the rain and we ended up together forever and ahhhhhhh.

Went off a bit there, but you get it.

Listen to: Every song. They’re all kind of different, and they’re all really worth it.