An Open Letter to Adam Young

Dear Adam Young,

I have been a fan since my best friend started playing your little known singles three years ago. I immediately appreciated the lyrics that you seemed to pull from the sky and the poppy, happy beats you laid them on.

With all that out there, I fear you are letting the fan girls run your music. You used to make music in your parents’ basement and never really cared if anyone heard it. And that is what made you special. You didn’t play any instruments or do any special dances but you made music with feeling and I felt it.

My favorite song has always been “The Saltwater Room.” It’s beautiful lyrically. The harmony found between your voice and the music creates something comfortable like being  on a swing in that time between summer and autumn. It’s perfect. Listening to it fills me up with happiness.

However you took that beautiful song and remade it for Ocean Eyes, and it’s not the same. It’s something different and uncomfortable. Your voice is different and the lyrics are different.  It’s like being in a familiar place, having all the lights turned out and trying to navigate, but finding out all the furniture has been moved.  It makes me unhappy.

This is just the beginning of what I have witnessed as a down turn in your musical style. Your songs don’t make sense at all anymore. In the beginning, I had to really struggle to find the meaning behind your songs. And even if I didn’t get what it meant to you, I had an idea of what it mean to me. Now I have no idea what to feel.

It started with fireflies. I get the point behind that one, but something just seemed off. Like maybe you were making too much sense with it and I found it uncomfortable. After that, all of Ocean Eyes is just nonsense. Take the first track off Ocean Eyes, “Cave In.” The opening line says, “Please take a long hard look through your text book, ‘cuz I’m history. When I strap my helmet on, I’ll be long  gone, ‘cus I’ve been dying to leave.” What do these two lines have to do with each other?? Maybe I am missing it. The song goes on to more quizzical lines like, “I’ve had  just about enough of quote diamonds in the rough because my back bone is paper thin.” I just don’t understand. The music behind it is still the same Owl City I grew to love but the lyrics, and your voice, are different.

I already wrote about the winter single you put out, so I will not dwell on that any longer. But you did just put out a new single and I feel the same about that one. It’s  like you let the stardom take your imagination and creativity.

I like seeing your face, cuz it’s cute, but maybe you need to go back to being that shy guy that never had pictures taken head on and doesn’t like to touch fans. I think the camera and fan girls are stealing your super powers.

Sincerely,

Bee

Owl city- “Peppermint Winter” single

Okay so I know a lot of readers will be all “Owl City is overrated and is just auto tuned garbage” but I genuinely like him. And I liked him before he had all those preteens screaming their little girl heads off for him because “He’s so deep and his songs are so magical.”

With all of that out there, his new single is pretty much over-produced garbage. I’m sorry Adam Young, but this one is a miss.

It kinda feels like he sat down and was like “I’m going to write a Christmas song.” But his brain was like “No. Bah humbug.” And he did not listen to his brain and instead forced this poppy, sugary sweet, musical ‘treat’ onto paper and into a song. (I apologize for the unintended rhyme, but now that it’s there, I like it).

The first lines  are just an introduction to what is to come in the next four minutes of your life. “There’s the Snow. Look out below. And bundle up ’cause here it comes. Run outside, so starry-eyed. A snowball fight breaks out, and winter has finally begun.”

There was a point where I was impressed that Adam Young could produce all of this himself in his basement, but now it  just seems like he is over doing  it and it is not faring well for him.