"Almost all good writing starts with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere," -Anne Lamott
In my (professional) opinion, the best Owl City Era was from 2011 to 2014. All Things Bright and Beautiful was - and is - an iconic pinnacle of Young's classic 'Owl City'. Despite the initial backlash against Young's 2012 album, The Midsummer Station, it has found it's place among the classics for what it is - a solid pop album with an Owl City flair. The climax of this era came with the release of the EP, Ultraviolet. Universally loved, Ultraviolet was the direction we all imagined The Midsummer Station would go in, but it was still characteristic of all of the places Young had been, TMS included.
However, Mobile Orchestra of 2015 changed the game a bit. Fans were unhappy with nearly everything about the album. Buzzwords like 'uninspired' and 'generic' were tossed around. And while I agree to some extent, there are songs on the album that are filled with greatness - I Found Love, Thunderstruck, and Bird With a Broken Wing. I do go back and listen to individual songs on the album frequently, but rarely the whole album at once.
Mobile Orchestra's main problem is that it doesn't have a cohesive tone. I believe that this arises from Young changing as an artist. And with that territory comes danger on all sides.
But I think I'm writing about this because I only now understand where Adam is coming from.
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A Panther In the Snow is a massive departure from A Cactus In the Valley in both tone, style, and content. And . . . I'm afraid people won't like it because it's so different from my last book.
Truly, this is an irrational fear because I don't have enough readers or an established enough style as an artist for A Panther In the Snow to take them off guard. But the fear is real and persists, nonetheless.
Looking forward, I've always been afraid of being . . . typecast, or pigeonholed as an author.
Yikes, Olivia's never written fantasy before.
Mmmm, I don't know how I feel about this book. It's just too . . . different.
Olivia's lost her touch as an author. I want to see more of her older stuff.
Like how Stephen King writes horror, like how Nora Roberts only writes romance, I don't want to be the author who only writes a certain type of book. (Granted, that option is a lot safer because you're always catering to one audience.)
And I feel like this is what has happened with Owl City. He's almost written himself into a corner. People have come to expect one thing from him, and when he doesn't provide, we're disappointed. And I'll even admit, I've fallen into this mindset myself.
However, it's a two-way street. When you're an artist, you're almost expected to adhere to a certain level of . . . sameness within your body of work. But we - the consumers and the artists - crave something new and fresh, but something that feels just familiar enough.
It's a paradox. And truly, I don't have an answer to this riddle, this middle ground we find ourselves in, straddling the line of what's familiar and what's new.
All I do know is that Adam Young will always be my favorite musical artist, and what I think of his music doesn't matter all that much as long as he's growing and changing and experimenting as an artist. Because I want people to expect no less of me.
~The WordShaker
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