All Things Bright and Beautiful (album)

All Things Bright and Beautiful is the third studio album by American electronic act Owl City. It was released on June 14, 2011.^[6]

Writing and development

The album sees for the most part Owl City leader Adam Young staying true to his synthpop roots; however, he also dabbles in indie rock, folk, European trance in "Galaxies" and on "Alligator Sky", rap. Guest musicians on the album include Shawn Chrystopher, Matthew Thiessen, Lights, Breanne Düren and Adam Young's mother, Joan Young.

The album was originally planned to have a worldwide release date of May 24, 2011.^[7] It was then changed to May 17.^[8] On April 6, however, Young posted on his official site that the release date had been bumped to June 14, 2011.^[9] He stated that the reason for this was, "In an attempt to better connect the dots and ensure that every cloud in the sky is stitched together with its own special silver lining", and "with school finally out for the summer, it'll be a perfect time to sit back and watch the fireworks." Along with this post were previews of four tracks from the new album, each being 1:30 long. The previews posted were of "Alligator Sky (ft. Shawn Chrystopher)", "Deer in the Headlights", "Galaxies" and "Dreams Don't Turn to Dust".

On the introductory track to "Galaxies", entitled "January 28, 1986" (the date of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster), Ronald Reagan's State of the Union speech is sampled.

Singles

The first official single released from the album was "Alligator Sky", which features Californian rapper Shawn Chrystopher, was released on March 22, 2011. There are currently four versions of the track. The first version features Shawn Chrystopher, the second features different lyrics and Chrystopher's vocals are omitted, a third version featuring Atlanta rapper B.o.B leaked online,^[10] and finally a fourth version featuring vocals from Big Boi of Atlanta hip hop duo Outkast also leaked onto the internet.^[11]

An exclusive single, "Lonely Lullaby", has been released to all members of Owl City Galaxy, a club that you automatically became a part of when you pre-ordered the album. The song mentions an "Annmarie" many times, a reference to Adam Young's ex-girlfriend, Annmarie Monson. This song, however, is not actually part of the album.

On April 19, 2011, "Galaxies" was released as the second single from the album, and was made available for purchase and download on iTunes. It is the band's highest charting single on Billboard Christian Song Chart, peaking at number 39,^[12] and surpassing Fireflies, which peaked at number 44 (2010).^[13] It has since then re-entered the chart at number 48 in the week of September 24, 2011. ^[12]

The third single to be released was "Deer in the Headlights",^[3] released on May 24, 2011 (but as an iTunes Exclusive, was made available for download the previous day). The single was announced in a different way than what is considered traditional. Starting May 16, 2011, every day of that week part of the song would be added to the sneak peek.^[14] It was originally just called "New Song", and fans had to guess the new song. The first part of the song to be released were the drums, followed by the addition of bass, guitar, synthesizer, and vocals over the next four days. On the final day, the title for the song was announced.

"Lonely Lullaby" was released as a single on July 19, 2011, making it officially available to people outside of Owl City Galaxy. The song has been a surprising success, being one of the higher charting singles.

Young has confirmed in an interview with Sugarscape that on October 10 "Dreams Don't Turn to Dust" will be the next single from the album, although it is uncertain if it will be released in the UK only.^[15]

Reception

Critical reception

All Things Bright and Beautiful has received mixed reviews, gaining a 49/100 score from Metacritic,^[27] an 8/10 score from IGN^[28] and a score of 5/10 from Spin.^[29]

Commercial performance

In the US, the album debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 chart selling 48,000 copies.^[30] In Germany, the album only reached No. 69 for one week before falling off the chart, charting lower than Ocean Eyes, which charted for 9 weeks and peaked at No. 7.^[31] In the United Kingdom, the album reached No. 30 in the midweek chart on June 23, only to fall off before the official chart later in the week.^[32] Ocean Eyes peaked at No. 7, and stayed in the top 75 for 14 weeks.^[33]

Track listing

^[34][35][36] The track "Lonely Lullaby" is included as a bonus track available after downloading the application Owl City Galaxy^[37] on iTunes.

Personnel

Owl City

• Adam Young – vocals, keyboards, guitars, drums, producer, engineer, art direction, audio mixer

Additional musicians and production

• Breanne Düren – additional vocals on track 5
• Matthew Thiessen – additional vocals on track 12
• Joan Young – additional vocals on track 9
• Shawn Chrystopher – additional vocals on track 10
• Lights – additional vocals on track 11
• Laura Musten – violin on tracks 4, 6, 10 & 13
• Hannah Schroeder – cello on tracks 6, 7, 10 & 13
• Daniel Jorgensen – vibraphone on tracks 4 & 7
• Steve Bursky – producer, management & hand claps on track 5
• Ted Jensen – mastering
• StudioAKT – art direction
• Jack Joseph Puig – audio mixer
• Joe Corey – audio mixer assistant

Charts

References