The fact that the US have a new number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 is not surprising – Jay Sean wasn’t going to be able to hold strong forever, especially with such fierce competition coming from our newest Chris Brown, but Fireflies is puzzling. The track, written by the one-man band that is Owl City (aka Adam Young), is the strangest thing to land inside the top five all year, yet alone to jump to the top spot.
The funny thing is that on first impressions it isn’t memorable at all. The chorus takes about a minute-and-a-half to kick in, meaning that the song is almost half over by the time we get to the hook. The track itself fumbles around the “everything is never as it seems” idea, which apparently has something to do dreams and planet earth and shit like that. And it’s all sort of ironic. While Death Cab For Cutie are standing tall on the albums chart with their appearance on the New Moon OST, Ben Gibbard’s other project (the Jimmy Tamborello assisted) The Postal Service are getting milked for all they’re worth.
To compare Fireflies to The Postal Service is almost an understatement. And despite the fact that it doesn’t fit into a genre very easily (which makes it’s place at the top spot seem even rarer), there’s obviously a market for it. Fireflies sold 196,000 downloads in the past week, which was good enough to lead it right on past the rightful heir to the throne, Jason Derulo and his track Whatcha Say. Hey, people, The O.C is over. Get outta here. [Idolator / Billboard]
