Worst. Song. Ever.

I first became aware of Owl City's "Fireflies" when it shot to the top of the itunes download list earlier this month. I say "became aware" because I did not listen to said song at that time. I didn't actually hear to it until my twitpal @madeinkowloon blip'd it my way a few weeks ago. I know this review is coming a little late, both in terms of when I heard the song and after the song hit its peak popularity, but I just want to add that it's a TERRIBLE SONG. Just plain bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI4JLa0hbUw

The song is straight up theft of The Postal Service sound. But it's like Owl City took all that was creative, innovative, and cool about the Dntel-Jimmy Tamborello & Ben Gibbard collaboration, dumped it in an acid bath of top 40 pop mediocrity, and let the resulting Frankenstein monstrosity loose on the radio to murder, ahem, bring indie electropop forward for mass consumption.

Honestly, the music isn't too awful, being snatched unfinished and incomplete as it were from Jimmy's harddrive. But that *IS* the problem with it. Whereas the Postal Service tracks were each carefully crafted, complex, and full of interesting sounds and hooks, "Fireflies" feels like gimmicky hack electronica. It's not egregiously bad, just forgettable and uninteresting.

And then you get to the words. OMFG, the lyrics to this song are the suck. Seriously, it sounds like they were written by committee of third graders. I'm not categorically opposed to songs about fireflies (re: Magentic Fields "100,000 Fireflies") but this song is entomology fail. I couldn't imagine a more blatant example of a tween panty-dropper without Stephanie Meyer's name attached to it. They are cheesy, lame, and oh so cliche.

However, I wouldn'y say that "Fireflies" is the worst song ever. That prize is reserved for this little "gem":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSMEVuRjz-I

Until next time...

P.S. You can follow me on blip.fm as dj katosmullet to hear what music I *do* like.