Ocean Eyes is the second studio album by American electronica project Owl City, released on July 14, 2009, by Universal Republic Records.

The album contains guest vocals by Relient K vocalist Matt Thiessen on the songs "Fireflies", "Cave In", "The Bird and the Worm", and "Tidal Wave".

[4] Just before Ocean Eyes's July 2009 release, Owl City garnered two hits on the Top Electronic Albums chart and over 40 million plays on MySpace.

[4] Owl City began developing a following on MySpace, which led to Adam Young signing with Universal Republic in February 2009.

[1] This success also led to the record company pushing back the release date of the physical copy of the album from July 28, 2009, to September 1, 2009.

[7] The song featured guest vocals from Matt Thiessen of Relient K.[8] Young was also joined by Breanne Düren on several tracks; the most notable example of which is "The Saltwater Room".

Young revealed the origin of the album's title when he said: I'm from the middle of nowhere in Minnesota you see, so the ocean has always been a curiously dreamy, ethereal, almost romantic thing to me.

Doing things one can only do in dusk and glow and midsummer dreams, as if the back of my closed eyelids were a silver screen and I was a sentimental projectionist with hundreds of fanciful reels at hand, all ready to roll.

[1] In January 2010, Owl City embarked on the Ocean Eyes Tour in the United States with support from Lights and Deas Vail.

[18] The album gained some positive reviews, including Entertainment Weekly which gave it a B+ and said that it was filled with memorable choruses and that the highlight song was "Dental Care".

However, they praised the tracks, "Meteor Shower" for its, "quaint piano and universal, down-trodden atmosphere," and "The Saltwater Room" for its additional vocals from Breanne Düren.

[31] Tony Cummings of Cross Rhythms noted, "Adam does brilliantly in creating wistfully pretty, ethereal music which is far more accessible than the work of The Postal Service... All in all, if you liked the single, you'll love the album.

'On The Wing', for example, is a valiant mix of undulating strings, ticker-tape percussion and sparkling glockenspiel which is begging for a quirky cartoon to soundtrack.

"[27] AllMusic also gave the album a total of 2.5/5, stating "Ocean Eyes ultimately winds up too sugary for its own good, though, having focused on dessert without giving its listeners any sort of meaty, substantive entrée.

A handful of ballads add some sense of variety to the album's pace, but Owl City is largely a vehicle for the one song Adam Young knows how to make.

[39] "Vanilla Twilight" was released as the album's second single on January 26, 2010, to radio,[40] the same day that the deluxe edition of Ocean Eyes hit stores.