IT’S HEEEEEERRREEEEE!!!! COCO MOON NEW OWL CITY ALBUM 2023

NEW OWL CITY ALBUM 2023!!! TODAY’S THE DAY YOU GUYYYYYYYYS!!!! It’s a very, very happy happy happy day for all fans of Owl City (which should mean all people, so this should be an international holiday 😎). That’s right, the new Owl City album, Coco Moon, releases today, and I am BEYOND excited about it. The following post will include my personal track-by-track commentary on the new album, and why you should be just as excited about it as I am (or at least go give it a listen lol). Enjoy!!

Adam’s description of Coco Moon

Here’s Adam’s description of his vision for Coco Moon from owlcitymusic.com:

“The goal with this new music was to get back to how I felt when I wrote my first song alone in my bedroom when I was 18 years old,” Young says of Coco Moon, Owl City’s seventh full-length effort and the follow-up to his powerhouse 2018 album Cinematic. “It was this very pure, euphoric moment when I realized that I could immediately be transported into another world that I’d made myself. I had no agenda beyond creating that feeling—it’s why I got started making music, and it’s what I want to keep fighting to attain.”

Raised in the small town of Owatonna, Young first began dreaming up Owl City’s emotionally charged form of electronic pop in his parents’ basement in his early 20s, and soon went viral with his sweetly surrealist hit single “Hello Seattle.” Not long after landing a record deal and making his major-label debut with 2009’s chart-topping, platinum-selling Ocean Eyes, he achieved meteoric success with the album’s lead single “Fireflies”—a heavy-hearted yet effervescent track channeling the kind of wide-eyed wonder that brightens our own outlook. “For me ‘Fireflies’ was just this random song that I really loved, but it ended up connecting with people in a massive way,” says Young. “It’s something I didn’t expect or even hope for, but it’s the coolest feeling to know that a song I made means that much to people.” Over the coming years, Owl City turned out widely beloved albums like 2012’s The Midsummer Station (featuring “Good Time” as well as collaborations with the likes of blink-182’s Mark Hoppus and hitmaking production duo Stargate) and Mobile Orchestra (a 2015 effort that found him joining forces with Aloe Blacc, Hanson, Jake Owen, and others).

Naming legendary film-score composer John Williams among his longtime influences, Young has embraced a certain thoughtful grandeur in the making of Coco Moon. To that end, songs like “The Tornado” set their ultravivid storytelling against a majestic sonic backdrop, ultimately lending a larger-than-life quality to the most intimate expression. “‘The Tornado’ came from wanting to invent a story rather than write something autobiographical, and it turned into a story of a kid who’s delivering papers when a horrible storm starts up and forces him to take cover so he won’t get swept away,” explains Young. Partly inspired by the childlike poetry of Shel Silverstein, the string-accented track slowly unfolds as a life-affirming epic, encompassing an entire movie’s worth of thrilling drama in just four-and-a-half minutes. Meanwhile, on “Adam, Check Please,” Owl City shares a profoundly personal coming-of-age tale, amplifying its wistful mood with a bold assemblage of sonic details: ethereal textures, skittering beats, vocals layered to spellbinding effect. “On that song I wanted to pay respect to my first job, which was working at a grocery store in high school,” Young says. “I remember being overwhelmed but also so excited, and looking back now I see that it really taught me to stretch beyond my comfort zone.”

In creating Coco Moon, Young has deliberately carved out his own quiet refuge from the chaos of the outside world. “I’ve been spending a lot of time reading and going for walks in nature, which helps me to stay focused on what’s important instead of getting caught up in the craziness of social media,” he notes. And with all of Owl City’s output, he hopes to provide his audience with a similar sense of solace and clarity. “After a hard day or week or even season of life, one of my favorite things is to put on my headphones and zone out on the music I love—it always feels like I’m escaping in a healthy way, and when I come back to reality I feel a little more equipped to deal with what’s difficult in life,” says Young. “Over the years I’ve had people tell me that my songs have done the same thing for them, and that’s really given me a sense of purpose. To me there’s no greater honor than to hear that my music might be a place people can go to feel uplifted, and to contrast the darkness of the world with something more hopeful and positive.”

Adam Young, owlcitymusic.com

Fan theories

There are a multitude of theories about this new Owl City album, and fans who are more in the know than I am have lots of ideas for certain songs. One of my favorite Coco Moon fan theories is that Adam created the album as a sort of wedding present for his girlfriend, Abby. Apparently she has a favorite coffee shop near where they live called Coco Moon… If this is true, then 1) I’m super happy for them, Adam 100% deserves happiness and I’m so glad he’s found his true love after all this time, and 2) HOW ADORABLE IS THIS this theory makes me slightly more open to the idea of dating a musician again, if getting an entire album dedicated to me as a wedding gift is a possibility 🤩😭💖😊

Track-by-Track reactions and commentary

Here are my authentic first impressions of each song on “Coco Moon.” Long story short, I LOVE this album and it has EVERYTHING I’ve been hoping for. But literally this is just the transcription of some notes I did in my bullet journal right as I was listening to Coco Moon for the first time, and beware: grammar sometimes goes out the window, there are a lot of run-on sentences, and also lots of all-caps phrases 😹

On another note: One of the things that I was hoping for the most in this new Owl City album in 2023 was that Adam would make more overtly Christian songs. As in, more songs where his beliefs and Christian worldview are evident. And he really came through with this!! All the songs below with a 🌟next to them have some level of Scripture reference or outright “praise God, I thank God, etc.” type of phrase in them.

1. “Adam, Check Please” (released 3 February)

I can’t wait to sing along to this song in concert later this year!! The “Help is on the way” refrain is just as catchy as I remember from when it first came out, and I think it’s a solid first track on the new album.

Here’s the full-length review I wrote for “Adam, Check Please.”

2. “Under The Circus Lights”

this song is SO MAGICAL!! Pretty sure I heard some old-timey FRENCH notes in the instrumentation and it reminds me a little of Ocean Eyes. Has an almost goofy tone to it like “Rugs From Me To You” but also very sweet and nostalgic song about being enamored with the trapeze artist at the circus and yeah really beautiful ✨

3. “Kelly Time” (released 6 January)

I’ve already heard this song many times since it released in January, but it’s still just as nice as I remember and I’m pretty sure I caught some harmonies that I missed before.

4. “Field Notes”🌟

OOOH this song is super cool! Storytelling that starts off slow and then builds with some violins. Dog runs away and they find a chest full of treasure in a ravine. Turns out it’s a reference to the Farmer Finds a Treasure in a Field/Pearl Without Price parable!! “There’s a couple of things more precious than gold, one is your heart and the other is your soul…” *dog barking* *violins* *surprise keytar(?) solo*

5. “Sons of Thunder”🌟

Okay this is probably (definitely) my favorite so far (in the whole album)!! “We are the daughters of wonder…” Talking about being unbreakable lights in the world and how we’ll meet in heaven and walk among the stars. KALJOFAIOERUJIAOW I LOVE THIS There’s some soft notes at the beginning and it builds with electric guitar and there’s this really beautiful flourish at the beginning that gave me chillsssss and I was crying a little bit listening to it because it’s so beautiful and it reminded me of when “Be Brave” came out in 2018 and it was at just the right time and yeah just wonderful.

6. “The Tornado”🌟

Another storytelling song that starts out calm and soothing and then suddenly escalates with violins and guitars and an interesting drumbeat and it gets so intense that Adam’s voice cracks a little (SCREAMO Adam?!) and then the narrator talks about thinking he’s gonna die and will his family know he loves them. Super intense song with a lot of awesome layers to it and some very vivid descriptions. “That’s how I learned to live when you can’t run but you can hide”

7. “Vitamin Sea” (released 6 March)

I still love this song despite having listened to it about 4789320758490 times since it came out. So relateable, and also the xylophone combined with the trademark electronic and guitar/drums is very niiiiiiiiiiice + the gratuitous keytar (probably) solos – it’s just super cool that Adam uses a keytar successfully XD I will not be getting over this fact anytime soon lol

Here’s the full-length review that I did of “Vitamin Sea” when it first came out : )

8. “Dinosaur Park”

I love the cricket sounds in this song and the storytelling reminds me of some of Cinematic’s song but with the tone of All Things Bright and Beautiful. higher vocal range imagining that the dinosaurs move and come to life when nobody’s there. There’s moments where the piano interludes go on just a little longer than expected (and that little sound keeps running through my head and it’s very nice). OOh, flutes! and tambourine!!

9. “Learn How To Surf”

“We’re gonna need a bigger boat” (I looked it up, turns out this is a quote from the movie Jaws lol). This song kinda reminds me of Of June and Maybe I’m Dreaming but it’s also fresh and new. Really like the first part, it’s very jazzy and cool and the record scratch lol love that. Is that a SAXAPHONE at the end??? Or is it the keytar again 🤔

10. “The Meadow Lark”🌟

I’ve got CHILLS with the storyline and the keyboard line. Two soldiers who are enemies are aiming at each other in a forest and this lovely little meadow lark sings them a song and the instrumentation is so sweet with flutes!! Also the old-timey poetic language and THE QUIET VOICE PART IS SO LOVELY and the instruments sound just like birdsong. Is this a REAL POEM?? Hmmmmmmmm….

11. “My Muse”🌟

AAAhhhhhh this song is for Abbey and it’s SO ADORABLE!!! So he’s singing about how much he loves her and “there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than here with you” and THEY’RE MARRIED IT’S CANON IF IT WASN’T ALREADY!! Wait is she SICK?? (Turns out it was just a general reference to the trials of life lol). Yep, this is the most beautiful love song I’ve EVER HEARD and my faith in humanity and the possibility of actually finding a person and living happily ever after has been restored just a little bit.

Free printables!!

Here are some free printable stickers that I made. They’ll be perfect for journaling or documenting the release of Coco Moon and your own thoughts on this brand-new 2023 Owl City album. Click any of the images below to download!!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this track-by-track commentary on the new 2023 Owl City album, Coco Moon. Have I convinced you to go listen to it if you haven’t already?? What do you think if you have?!

Happy fangirling!