Owl City’s “Fireflies” moved into the Hot 100 penthouse this week after shifting 196,000 paid downloads last week—it’s currently at No. 5 on the iTunes chart, behind a couple of bonus tracks from Taylor Swift’s re-released Fearless and Lady GaGa’s “Bad Romance.” More on this slightly unexpected triumph of post-Postal Service bedroom pop from Chris Molanphy on Friday, but for now, let’s all wonder if this means that the next Twilight soundtrack will move on from Pitchfork darlings to Jimmy Tamborellos in training. [Billboard / Dailymotion]
Wow. I never thought this band (or, guy I guess) would move past your typical afternoon spot on the side-stage at Bamboozle. Congrats to him.
Album is ok, although I think this track is the only real standout. Perfect Fischer Price “My First Electronica-inspired pop act” band.
OK, so I just got around to listening to this — and this guy should be ASHAMED OF HIMSELF. Feel free to make gentle glitch-pop with wuss singing, but to so completely rip off everything about the Postal Service is just grotesque. How do you look in the mirror in the morning knowing that everything about your success comes from copying someone else’s better idea?
OWL CITY : POSTAL SERVICE :: FAYGO COLA : PEPSI
@urbanator: Dude doesn’t look like a Juggalo to me but maybe this is part of the overall ICP master plan.
Owl City : Postal Service :: the Knickerbockers : the Beatles (if the Knickerbockers and the Beatles both sucked.)
While the song may sound derivative, this is an amazingly functional music video. It seeks out your weaknesses for 80s nostalgia and schmaltz, and attacks them with precision .. all while featuring the singer enough to make him semi-recognizable. After watching “Subterranean” and drowning in visual media projects, sometimes videos like these cleanse the palate.
Between this and the new moon soundtrack it’s a great day for dweebs.
@NedRaggett: Maybe we should call him “Diabolical J”.
He rhymes HUGS with LIGHTNING BUGS. He must be stopped.
Yeah, this starts off sounding like a straight-up Postal Service rip-off, and then veers quickly into previously undelved realms of suck.
I’m still traumatized by that first chorus and its rhyme scheme.
@mishaps: Yeah, I was just about to swoop in here and call attention to that line once more, because atrocities should not be ignored or forgotten.
But okay, regardless of lyrical transgressions, this thing is stupid catchy. I listened to it once more here, going against my usual reserve of good, life-preserving ideas, and I know in one week I will be lying face down, I will feel my head retrieve cold from the pavement, I will mouth the words, “I’d like to make myself BELIEEEEEVE…”
I can not begin to describe how much I dislike this whole album… it is so dull and boring and inoffesive which is the worst trait of all. It is a sad statement on pop music that so many people like something so dull.
Where is this going to chart on the Top 50 worst, Maura?
@slowburn: Hahah I admit I was thinking that this morning.
Any news on where that 111 Years of Deutsche Grammophon 55-cd box charted in Canada? For those who don’t know, the iTunes store screwed up and was selling it for $9.99 instead of $119.99 from (at least) Friday on, and as the word spread over the Internet, it steadily topped the Canadian iTunes album chart throughout the weekend.
Only a couple of days ago did I realize that this song and the Death Cab song from the New Moon soundtrack aren’t one and the same. I just figured Ben Gibbard had decided fuck it, if Postal Service is never going to make another album, I’ll just start making Death Cab sound like Postal Service.
@slowburn: Top 50 worst
Aw, c’mon, seriously? This may be The Postal Service for Dummies but it’s nowhere near as bad as Three Doors Down or “My Humps.”
@Thierry: I got a bunch of Beat Happening box sets, Punch Drunk Love-style, from SamGoody.com for 6.99 apiece a number of years ago.