Owl City

OK, yes: Owl City's brainchild, Adam Young, sounds a heck of a lot like Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard, and the music Young creates shares more than a passing resemblance to Gibbard's currently dormant side band, the Postal Service. And no, Young still hasn't really owned up to the overwhelming similarity between his shoegazer electro-emo and the stuff Gibbard created with Jimmy Tamborello. But to be fair, the kid's been making these tunes since 2007 — and if the recent platinum certification of his sophomore album, Ocean Eyes, is any indication, he's gotten pretty damn good at it. Relient K's Matt Thiessen co-wrote two of the album's cheesier moments, "The Bird and the Worm" and "Tidal Wave," but the smash single "Fireflies" was all Young's doing. The song's gone No. 1 everywhere from Australia to Sweden — and here, too, as if we needed to remind you how omnipresent it is in your daily routine by this point.