Ocean Eyes, the second studio album by Owl City was released July 14, 2009 via label Universal Republic. Lead single “Fireflies” topped the Billboard Hot 100 the week it debuted, and was downloaded on iTunes over 650,000 times after being chosen as the iTunes Single of the Week.
Adam Young, Owl City’s founder, explains the album’s title:
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. Over the years I spent a great deal of time with my eyes closed, imagining myself having the most wonderful adventures by the seaside. 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. Thus is the reasoning behind the title.