(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still / Album Cover)
Mon 8 September 2025 23:00, UK
Maybe it’s just a pre-disposed attitude of self-deprecation, or maybe it is just rooted in the outright truth, but my adolescence truly existed in one of the worst eras of culture. The 2010s were a horrifically drab chapter of culture, with no real obvious characteristics besides skinny jeans and stomp-clap music.
Not like the charismatically nonchalant 1990s or the laid-back coolness of the 1970s, the 2010s were where cringe finally broke the commercial threshold and became the common currency of the decade. One Direction ruled the roost as Simon Cowell’s reign of supremacy rolled on, hip-hop sleepwalked into baseless mumble rap led by internet sensationalists and indie; well, indie was hijacked by Mumford and Sons copycats.
As a culture vulture, I looked around and thought, this surely can’t be it can it? Of all artistic eras to be cutting my adolescent teeth in, I somehow found myself in the realms of Made In Chelsea-inspired indie-pop.
While I fully accept trashy pop music is inevitable in all eras, or in fact a necessary evil upon which authenticity can rebel, I can confidently say that some of the tripe we were gifted in the 2010s was truly the worst of the lot. Don’t believe me? Then how on earth do you account for: Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ Megha Trainor’s ‘All About That Bass’ or worse yet, ‘Fireflies’ by Owl City.
All three of these ideas are classic examples of how the era fostered an attitude of “there’s no such thing as a bad idea.” Rudimentary and rather basic creative ideas were championed in the name of earworms, hoping to capitalize on a growing era of internet trends.
Okay, in defence of Owl City, in comparison to the former two examples, this was a song driven a little bit more by own experience. But still, the very kernel of his idea was what made the final song, without any development or nuance.
“I’d just been on vacation to Iowa the week before I wrote the song and was amazed at how many fireflies came out at dusk. I didn’t really have to think about making a connection between insomnia and lighting bugs, it just sort of happened and the song basically wrote itself. It was a lot of fun.”
Perhaps what is so frustrating is that the almost transcendental inspiration for the song has the hallmarks of a great idea. Cosmic irreverence has often been used in great songs, but to a more captivating and dare I say it, mature effect. And the autotune certainly didn’t help the maturity, which ultimately made the song sound like the genuine dreamstate of a child.
Which is unfortunate, given the genesis of the idea was rooted in actual instrumental curiosity, as oppose to horrifically catchy hook writing like Psy and Trainor.
“It was 2am and I was sitting on the floor in my parents’ basement with a MicroKorg on my lap,” Owl City, better known as Adam Young, described. “I built this synthy legato, ‘ping’ sound routed through a lowpass filter and ran it through a bunch of guitar pedals. I came up with a little cascading part that wound up as the intro and verses of a song called ‘Fireflies.’”
I would admit, a tirade nearly 15 years after the fact seems slightly harsh. But as music has thankfully moved on to a more creatively intriguing landscape this decade, it was time we looked back and started diagnosing just where we went wrong in the 2010s.
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