Today's Pick

The 23-year-old Owatonna wunderkind Adam Young or more commonly known as the one-man synthpop act 'Owl City' has been all over the world these past few months. After gaining worldwide recognition status for "Fireflies" and "Vanilla Twilight," the Owannota bred synth star is gearing up for his second release in the UK. It might be known to all that "Fireflies" had a warm welcome to the British fans earlier this year as it went No.1 for three straight weeks. The new single is titled "Umbrella Beach" and is taken from his sophomore full-length album "Ocean Eyes" and will be released as the album's second UK single on May 17, and it will possibly be released as the third US single following "Vanilla Twilight."
"Umbrella Beach" was originally released promotionally on November 19, 2009, preceding the release of the official first single "Fireflies." An exclusive remix created by Kenny Hayes is included on the single release. The single is the uptempo with it comes a very British video, shot at Hope Cove on the Devon coast, directed by Alexander Brown who has created an evocative narrative about a boy and his very special boxcar. The track is a mere collection of slick synth dance beats making the track a potential club hitter. You can hear positivity from the track which makes it absolutely radio friendly as a summer anthem.
Owl City is the electronic brainchild of Adam Young, who launched the project in 2007 while living at his parents' home in Owatonna, Minnesota. Troubled by insomnia, Young began spending his evenings in the household basement, where a computer and several instruments provided a welcome diversion from his sleeping patterns. He eventually combined those diversions into a blend of electronica and emo-pop, using little more than his computer and various keyboards to record the material. Songs were uploaded to MySpace upon completion, and Young began attracting a surprising amount of attention on the networking site. Owl City has reached the "Top Unsigned Artist" position on Myspace, having over 10 million total plays. Young maintains two side projects, Swimming With Dolphins, and Port Blue: "If your household appliances wrote love songs while you were away on vacation, their cheerful blips and bleeps would pour out the windows, sweep through the neighborhood like candy-coated tidal waves, and you would return home to find crowds of people standing on your lawn, clapping and singing along to the happiest pop melodies imaginable. Welcome to Owl City."