*WARNING* Before you continue, this post will use the word You sometimes in mildly negative formats. This does not mean that I am complaining at you. Instead, I am using this as an informal pronoun that can apply to you or it can not.

Please Understand: Before we begin this essay, if you have any complaints about me "trying to force you to change your opinion" or something like that, please read the following paragraph as well as the second-to-last paragraph. Thanks!

"It is uninspired" one might say. "To be honest, it's boring" says another. "Really only two songs were good on it" chimes in a third. All are valid opinions. All are perfectly fine thoughts to have on an album, but perhaps Cinematic is what Owl City fans need.

Well why do I say that Owl City fans need Cinematic? It is for the exact reason quite a few of them dislike it. It's too real. When is real such a bad thing? Why can't we like where we live?

In the album "All Things Bright and Beautiful" Adam Young reveals in The Real World how he believes "Reality is a lovely place/but I wouldn't want to live there". Yet even though Young knows this he still knows that death and pain and despair and anxiety can be expressed in such metaphorical, imaginative, and unique ways. Why doesn't his newer works -namely Cinematic- follow suit in these ways?

"Truth is stranger than fiction" someone may tell you, "Wonder is all around". "Yeah, no", you may say, "I can't find fairies in real life". Young knows that the first remark is the truest, "Living close to the ground/Is seventh heaven 'cause there are angels all around/Among my frivolous thoughts, I believe/There are beautiful things seen by the astronauts" (Angels).

Something I found noticeably lacking in Owl City's pre-2016 works other than Good Time and When Can I See You Again (Please comment if there are more) is the topic of friends and family. Sure, we got songs with and/or about (mostly) made up girlfriends and parents, but nothing really... tangible. Everything was cleared off the slate from song to song. We could get a song about a painful breakup followed by falling in love and then going for a lunar honeymoon...? A common complaint I hear about Mobile Orchestra is how the songs just jump around. Pre-2016 99% of his songs just jumped around.

I think that as Adam Young is getting older he is realizing that the world isn't such a sad sight, even more so if seen in black-and-white. I may get complaints for using a promotion song, but Young even sings in Up to the Cloud how he "Wants to return to the real world/For life to be normal again".

"Wait", you say, "how does this concern me as the listener? Most of what you have been talking about is about Young, not how I need Cinematic".

The simple answer is cotton candy and Durian (the fruit not the singer). What do I mean? Well to me, pre-2014 Owl City is cotton candy. Most of his songs -though great- often seem meaningless. "Well Fireflies is about imagination" one may say. Well, so is Dear Vienna. And Alligator Sky. And Air Traffic. And Sky Diver. And... need I say more? Although there is always, always, many times and places for cotton candy, it cannot be your only diet from the food stand, you will always need more.

Durian fruit. For many cultures, the Durian is repulsive. It stinks to high heaven (at least our ceilings) and its taste can be described as eating "cheese, garlic, and caramel all at once". Disgusting, right? Many other cultures love eating the Durian finding it delicious. It is also an excellent source of energy as it is high in carbs. Much more filling than the cotton candy. Much harder to keep down as well.

Suicide is an awful thing, right? Raise your hand if you'd like to hear a song about that. In this world that is quickly scrambling for equality, who would like to hear a song about a dad? A straight white Christian dad? Raise your hand if you want to sing about finding a house. A previous job? Your graduation? Your girlfriend's bro? Your birth? Real things? If I brought those up, how hard would it be to keep your feelings about it down? Much harder than your flights of fancy, right?

Although starting in 2014, post-record label caused Young to finally be himself... And the first thing he released was panned by many for not "sounding like Young". This is probably the realest Young we have seen in lyric form since 2008. Perhaps the reason we find that it doesn't sound like Young is because we can't see the world like how Young sees it. Or perhaps it doesn't sound like Young because we don't know what Adam Young sounds like anymore.

Cinematic is what Owl City fans need. It is the bowl of Durian that keeps us full while making the cotton candy that much sweeter. It helps keep our expectations -both in real life and in our music choices- more down to earth, while making the past Owl City work more dreamy. Cinematic helps us to remember fondly our fathers and other parental figures. It reminds us of how cheesy our friends can be and how we love them because of that. It reminds us how meeting your girlfriend can become like a dream. New life is a tiring celebration. A worldly journey can find your true place. A decent record deal can help find who you really are.

To some, Cinematic soothes our ears. To others, it is just Owl City doing something new. Others may see it as a prophetic decline in his music. Others may claim that Owl City was pressured into doing it. Others may just shrug and return back to earlier songs. Be one of these. Any of them are fine. Say you like the album, say you don't, it really all amounts to the same thing. Music is subjective, so all of our opinions are perfectly valid.

Remember: " You see, you can’t please everyone so you gotta please yourself", but in pleasing yourself, be mindful and respectful of others and their opinions. We won't do them perfectly, but if we do the best we can, we should be on the right track.