"Dreams Don't Turn to Dust" is a song by American

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to r ...

project Owl City. The song was released on October 10, 2011 as the second promotional single from his third studio album, '' All Things Bright and Beautiful'' via Universal Republic. It was released exclusively in the United Kingdom.

Background and release

On April 6, 2011, Young released previews of four tracks from the album including "Dreams Don't Turn to Dust". In an interview with Sugarscape, Young confirmed that the song would be the next single from the album released on October 10, 2011. Speaking about how the song came together, he stated, "Outside of music I've always dreamed of being an underwater welder - like a commercial scuba diver who dives down and welds rivets under water."

Composition

"Dreams Don't Turn to Dust" was written and produced by Adam Young. The track runs at 90 BPM and is in the key of

G-sharp major G-sharp major is a theoretical key based on the musical note G, consisting of the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has six sharps and one double sharp. Its relative minor is E-sharp minor, which is usually replaced by ...

. Young's range in the song spans from the notes B3 – B5. The song incorporates

synth-pop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s ...

with influences of hip-hop. Young stated he was inspired by the American hip-hop group

A Tribe Called Quest A Tribe Called Quest was an American hip hop group formed in Queens, New York City, in 1985,Q-Tip

. He stated, "I wanted to use a hip-hop influence that no one would expect. I was listening to a lot of Tribe and I love that sort of walking speed of their beats. I knew I wanted to try and pull from that." During the song's breakdown, the track features a similar sound to Owl City's hit song, " Fireflies".

Critical reception

AltSounds gave a positive review describing the track as a "feel-good electropop song." They compared the song to Coldplay's "

Paradise In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in paradis ...

" for its "easily digestible, crescendo sense." They ended off stating, "an outsider might notice a twinkle in the listeners eye, perhaps even a spring in ones step."

Live performances

"Dreams Don't Turn to Dust" was performed live regularly during the

All Things Bright and Beautiful Tour The All Things Bright and Beautiful Tour is the second headlining concert tour by American electronica project Owl City, in support of his third studio album, '' All Things Bright and Beautiful'' (2011). Background Owl City released his third ...

and was featured in Owl City's live album '' Owl City: Live From Los Angeles''.

Personnel

Owl City * Adam Young – vocals, lyricist, mixing, recording engineer, producer Additional musicians and production * Laura Musten – violin * Daniel Jorgensen – vibraphone * Steve Bursky – executive producer

Charts

Release history

References

{{Owl City 2011 songs Owl City songs