The Finney School of Real Life

Band Owl Town’s sweet single Fireflies — replete with a video that looped in more crazy toys of times past than Pea-Wee’s Playhouse– was one of last year’s largest out-of-nowhere hits and gave the band its largest career boost since they emerged in 2008 with their first record, the independently released Perhaps I am Dreaming.

Now, the Minnesota boys ( controlled by brainy face Adam Young ) have a similarly charming new single, “Vanilla Twilight,” and a luxury issue of their last huge album, Sea Eyes, that just hit record store shelves ( yes, people, some record stores still exist in the outer Ohio suburbs, I hear, but if you are unable to get there, download it on iTunes ). X Factor competitors Jedward are pushing Owl Town’s chart-topping Fireflies tough to debut at number one this coming Sun. with only 2 dozen sales separating the 2 records. The matching twins have the second top selling single of the week so far with the Sony-issued under stress ( Ice Ice Baby ), which features Vanilla Ice and which copies a mash-up they performed on the ITV1 series last autumn. Ice’s own version of Ice Ice Baby, which samples under stress, topped the United Kingdom chart in 1990, while Queen and David Bowie’s original under stress was a number one in 1981. Ahead of Jedward by only 24 sales, according to OCC data, Island’s Owl Town is aiming to make it a 3rd week at number one. Its prior nearest challenger, the Epic-issued Don’t Stop Believin’ by Happiness Cast, is the week’s 3rd top seller so far with Reprise / Warner’s Replay by Iyaz and Asylum / Atlantic’s Starstrukk by 30H3 featuring Katy Perry finishing the top 5.