Owl City & Carly Rae Jepsen – Good Time
Despite hiding behind the Owl City moniker, multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter Adam Young has made his name through an intensely personal connection with his audience. An unusually active and responsive presence on MySpace (remember that?) helped him turn the fuzzy electropop songs written and recorded in his Minnesota bedroom into viral hits.
Inevitably, major labels sniffed an opportunity to harness some of this online goodwill. It’s safe to say the gamble paid off, with Owl City’s second album ‘Ocean Eyes’ scoring big on the Billboard charts and spawning a number one single in the shape of ‘Fireflies’.
Young’s latest track sees him teaming up with Canadian Idol runner up Carly Rae Jepsen, the name behind omnipresent smash of the summer ‘Call Me Maybe’. So inescapably catchy that it’s probably playing in your head right now, the song has topped charts all over the world and generated so many YouTube ‘tributes’ that it threatens to break the internet.
“I love Carly’s song ‘Call Me Maybe’. I remember hearing it for the first time and immediately became a huge fan of hers – it is absolutely contagious,” Young told Music Feeds. “A bit later, I actually found out that she had known of my music for a while and even went to a couple of shows of mine in Vancouver so I definitely knew I wanted to collaborate with her.”
The result is a song that plays to both artists’ strengths. Owl City’s warmly pulsing electronica combines nicely with Jepsen’s vocals and some endearingly cheery lyrics to create an unashamedly feelgood track that should bring a smile to even the most hatchet-faced miserablist.
But even if you don’t like the tune, it’s fun to imagine what an actual Owl City would look like. You could expect very few streetlights and some extremely strict noise ordinances, but on the plus side there wouldn’t be any pest control issues.
