Earlier this year, the Black Eyed Peas held the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for a remarkable 26-week stretch—an impressive feat of musical domination, to be sure. Then again, we’re talking about one of the world’s most successful bands, an act with an established fan base and a knack for self-promotion and brand management that would do any advertising firm proud.
When a band of the Peas’ stature lands at No. 1, it’s not too surprising. It’s simply a case of the rich getting richer, one might say.
But what about when the act at No. 1 comes out of nowhere? Literally.
I’m talking about Owl City.
Who are they? I confess I didn’t know until recently—yesterday, actually. And it turns out that Owl City isn’t a “they” at all, but 23-year-old Adam Young of Owatonna, Minn.
A couple years ago, Adam began writing electronic techno-pop in his folks’ basement, just for the fun of it. “I started writing electronica music just on a whim,” he recently told Entertainment Weekly. “I hadn’t really delved into the world of programming and sequencing, and the endless roads that you can take via electronic music, so I thought it would be fun to take a stab at it. I got a sequencing program and wrote what turned out to be seven songs for an EP’s worth of music. I put that stuff out there on MySpace and didn’t really do much with it, just let people discover it. The response that came in was incredible. One thing led to another.”
Indeed.
Three albums and millions of MySpace hits later, Adam has a No. 1 hit with the song “Fireflies.” It’s a turn of events antimusic.com dubbed “the artist development story of 2009.”
There are lots of interesting angles to Owl City’s remarkable story (a couple of which, including Adam’s Christian faith, we detail in our review of “Fireflies” here).
But the one I want to focus on is how the Internet continues to democratize the music industry. Even as major labels struggle to stay viable, MySpace and iTunes and other services make it possible—at least in theory—for virtually anyone with talent, resourcefulness and a bit of luck to reach the top. Including a young musician with just a keyboard and a computer who was forced to turn his folks’ furnace off in order to record.
“My parents live in a 104-year-old Victorian farmhouse [that included] a really old, unfinished basement that I had sort of taken over. I remember recording during winter and having to unplug the furnace because it was so loud and I needed to get the room to be quiet. The whole house got [down to] 30 degrees and my parents weren’t too happy. But they’re not complaining now, so it’s all good!”
As some people lament the demise of the music business as we know it, it’s good to keep in mind that the rise of new media also makes it possible for artists such as Adam Young to reach the masses as well—a development that would have been unimaginable not very long ago.
Who says living in mom and dad’s basement has to be a dead end?
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