Frank Ocean has kicked off 2018 with a Tumblr post that hints at new music – potentially even a new album – coming in 2018.
The Blonde artist shared a photo of a guy wearing a hat that says, “If you liked 2017, you’ll love… 2018″, and a caption that reads “new 18/99″. The quote on the hat refers to a mini-essay he penned for Vice’s i-D magazine in 2017, which ended with the comment, “If you liked two thousand and seventeen then you’ll love two thousand and eighteen.”
Fans are still in awe of the unusually prolific artist, who, after waiting four years between Channel Orange and Endless, went on to release several original songs, guest on tracks by Jay-Z, Calvin Harris and Tyler, The Creator, perform at numerous festivals, curate his own radio program and release merchandise among other things throughout 2017.
In another Tumblr post last year, he also alluded to having an unreleased album under his belt, meaning the possibility of another new album is not entirely ridiculous:
The comment refers to a much earlier tweet from Ocean, who once stated that he’d have five albums before turning 30. He turned 30 on October 28, 2017.
Of course, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This is Frank Ocean, after all, one of the most reclusive, historically unreliable artists in the game. But he’s also one of the greatest, so we’ll take what we can get.
After cancelling a number of scheduled festival appearances, Frank Ocean has appeared live in public, for real, performing at several European and USA festivals throughout the summer season. The majority of footage thus far has only been available via social media posts and live feeds on Instagram and Periscope, but now, one dedicated fan has uploaded Frank’s most recent performance at FYF Fest in California, in its entirety, to YouTube.
Though the cancelled appearances ruffled more than a few feathers, the Blonde artist’s live performances have been nothing short of remarkable. Honestly you’ll probably tear up watching this. I certainly have.
For the most part, Frank’s live sets have focused heavily on Blonde material as well as the smattering of standalone tracks released this year and a couple earlier numbers from Channel Orange and Nostalgia, Ultra.
Other FYF Fest performers this year included Missy Elliott, Nine Inch Nails, Solange, Bjork, A Tribe Called Quest and Run The Jewels, as well as Australian artists Julia Jacklin and Royal Headache.
https://youtu.be/2dFHnwuPnmQ
Frank Ocean FYF Fest Setlist
- Pretty Sweet
- Solo
- Chanel
- Lends
- Biking
- Hublots
- Commes Des Garcons
- Runnin Around/Good Guy
- Poolside Convo/Self Control
- Wither
- Close to You/Never Can Say Goodbye
- Ivy
- Only You (Steve Monite cover)
- Thinkin Bout You
- Nights
- Pink + White
- Futura Free
- Nikes
In a move that surprises absolutely no one, Frank Ocean has pulled out of his headlining set at Sasquatch Festival.
The Washington festival announced the news today via social media, citing “production delays beyond his control.” Frank has been replaced by LCD Soundsystem, who are stepping up to headline alongside Chance the Rapper and Twenty One Pilots.
“Production delays” is a deliberately ambiguous swerve, of course, no different to the “scheduling conflicts” “unexpected circumstances” and “personal reasons” arbitrarily tacked onto other cancellations. They’re neither real nor honest, just easy ways to avoid explanation. Cynical? Absolutely. True? Almost always.
Though the Blonde artist has been remarkably present of late, what with his Apple Music radio programs, three loose singles and most recently appearing at the Met Gala, the chances of actually seeing him perform live were always thin.
Ahead of Sasquatch, Frank is also scheduled to perform at Hangout Festival in Alabama on May 19. At this point we’d put money on a no-show there, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5onaWSflUQ0
When he first began announcing festival shows last year, Howl & Echoes pointed out how frequently he’s cancelled dates and whole tours in the past, and that it “would be more surprising if he actually did show up.”
I hate to say I told you so.
Continuing to defy expectations, Frank Ocean has dropped another new standalone single, Lens, and a second version featuring a guest verse from Travis Scott. It marks his third new single this year, on top of a Calvin Harris collaboration. Lens came out earlier today, once again released during his blonded RADIO show on Beats 1 Radio.
Earlier this year, Frank dropped the beautiful new Chanel, later releasing a remix with a verse from A$AP Rocky. He also recently dropped Biking, featuring both Jay Z and Tyler, The Creator.
It’s still difficult to believe that Frank Ocean is out here randomly dropping loosies, putting together a radio show, gearing up for worldwide festival appearances and generally making his presence known to the world. Considering the agonising four years we endured between his last releases, though, we’re hardly complaining.
Listen to the solo version below. The Travis Scott version can be found on the blonded RADIO program at the 1:18:50 mark.
Image: Flickr
Imagine if one year ago you were told that Frank Ocean would not only drop two albums, he’d start randomly releasing features and loosies at random for no reason. Seems pretty crazy, huh?
Sounds pretty crazy, right? Right. But Frank Ocean has now dropped his third song since releasing both Endless and Blonde last year. He’s just shared a new track titled Biking, featuring both Jay Z and Tyler, The Creator.
The song was announced a few hours earlier, when a trailer appeared online ahead of the third episode of Frank’s Blonded Radio on Apple’s Beats 1. As promised, the track premiered during the show.
This is a really beautiful song. It’s great to hear Hov on the intro, even if his verse is a little underwhelming. Meanwhile, Tyler’s verse is an absolute showstopper, and Frank’s melodies are sublime, backed by little more than piano and acoustic guitar throughout.
Back in February, Calvin Harris dropped a new song, Slide, featuring Frank Ocean and Migos. Frank then dropped his own new track, Chanel.
Edit: the link to Biking has been removed. However, you can listen to the whole radio program here, with Biking coming in at 1:35:25.
Edit 2: The official Odd Future Soundcloud has posted the track:
Listen to the full playlist from the latest Blonded Radio below.
Read more: Listen to Frank Ocean’s “Nikes” Pitched Down
There’s been a mini whirlwind of Frank Ocean news over the past couple days. This doesn’t exactly happen often, so we thought it best to round up all the news in an update for all you Frank Ocean Stans out there.
Slide
This week, he released the first new music since the two album, in the form of a feature on Calvin Harris’ new bangor Slide. Ocean has now taken to lyrics annotation website Genius to dish out the meaning behind one of the lines in his intro. He explains that the lyric, “I might empty my bank account and buy that boy with a pipe,” is specifically referring to “A picasso painting that sold for so much money.” The 1905 painting in question is called Garçon à la pipe (which means “Boy with a pipe”), which was sold in 2004 for US$104.2 million. That’s a big bloody bank account.
While we would love for Frank to annotate some of his own lyrics on Genius, we feel this is pretty unlikely. Nevertheless, it’s interesting that this is his first self-annotation on the website. Genius has formerly been blessed with self-annotations from some of the biggest artists in the game, like Eminem and RZA.
blonded RADIO
Even more surprising this week was a two-hour radio program on Apple Music, who seem to be acting as a kind of surrogate label for the artist, after he controversially dumped Def Jam/Universal between his two albums last year. The program is titled “blonded RADIO,” and included a diverse playlist of new music (Future, Migos, Dirty Projectors, Clams Casino etc.), old favourites (Prince, OutKast, Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Sade, Pixies etc.) and his own releases (Pink + White, Slide, Self Control). Bizarrely, the show also featured a fairly in-depth interview with Jay Z, owner of Apple Music’s competitor Tidal. It actually seems like this may be something of a bridge-building effort between the two, as an official “blonded RADIO” playlist has now appeared on Tidal, featuring every song Ocean played on his program. Currently, whether this is a one-off or the start of an ongoing series is unconfirmed.
https://twitter.com/Beats1/status/835172505715412992
Tumblr
For the real obsessives out there (uh, definitely not us, no way) Frank Ocean has also been posting more Tumblr updates than usual in the last few weeks. This notably included his mini-rant against the Grammys, slamming their criticism of his botched 2013 performance, while reiterating his reasons to avoid the entire awards ceremony and nominations altogether this year. He also posted a photo of himself taken by Michael Mayren, and a short video of a basketball game alongside lyrics from Slide. Most recently he posted an image with the caption “RIP Ren Hang,” mourning the death of the beloved Chinese photographer, who died this week at age 29. Hang had contributed some of the most striking images found in Ocean’s 2016 zine Boys Don’t Cry.
Image: Michael Mayren/Tumblr
Calvin Harris has been teasing a new song featuring Frank Ocean and Migos for a few weeks now via Snapchat, and the song, called Slide, is finally upon us in all its glory.
The song begins with (what we assume to be) Frank Ocean singing in a really high pitched voice, reminiscent of Nikes and several other tracks off his groundbreaking 2016 record Blonde. The beat is relaxing and laid back compared to the intense beats you might usually expect from Calvin Harris – perhaps an indication of a more subdued, easygoing sound for the Scottish producer. Ocean’s melody is simple, rich and warm, while Offset of Migos’ auto-tuned contribution adds another unique layer to the breezy tune.
It’s not the most exciting track in the world, and certainly doesn’t match up to Ocean’s recent work, but that’s not to say it isn’t melodically lovely. Considering the pedigree of each artist, we have no doubt that it’ll be on heavy rotation on every radio station and nightclub for the foreseeable future.
The track is expected to feature on Harris’ as-yet-unannounced fifth album, which will reportedly feature many collaborations “with the greatest artists of our generation.”
Frank Ocean is well known for his choice collaborations. We needn’t look further than Endless and Blonde to witness his elite selections, which included Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, Beyoncé, André 3000, James Blake and Sampha to name just a few. So it might come as a surprise to hip-hop heads and musical elitists that his next song will be coming out in the form of a Calvin Harris collaboration.
Harris posted a video to Snapchat today of himself driving around the streets of Los Angeles pumping this new collaboration with the Nikes artist, who placed twice in this year’s Hottest 100 earlier this week.
Calvin Harris showing a sneak peek of brand new song with Frank Ocean. pic.twitter.com/3OSf0epCRA
— Frank Ocean stuff (@FrankOceanStuff) January 26, 2017
It’s unexpected, that’s for sure, but we’re not ones to judge. It would be remiss and arrogant to criticise this collaboration based on Harris’ status as an EDM superstar. Besides, in a world where Kendrick Lamar collaborates with Taylor Swift and Maroon 5, and Chance the Rapper gets Justin Bieber on his album, is it really that far-fetched that Frank is branching out?
There’s no more details regarding the track name or any potential release dates, but Harris did also announce that he’s got ten new releases coming out this year, so we can no doubt expect them to start rolling out some time soon.
In his first public post for the year, Frank Ocean has voiced his support for the anti-Donald Trump comments made yesterday at the Golden Globe Awards by actress Meryl Streep.
Ocean’s last Tumblr post was on New Years Eve, reading, “CELEBRATING INDEPENDENCE SINCE 2016. Happy new year hoes”
Today, his short post simply reads, “SAY IT MERYL!”
The comment comes after Meryl Streep delivered one hell of a biting speech against the president elect. Watch it here in full:
At tonight's #GoldenGlobes we honor Hollywood legend Meryl Streep with the prestigious Cecil B. Demille Award. pic.twitter.com/dxpeCDNXY6
— Golden Globes (@goldenglobes) January 9, 2017
Streep was not the only celebrity to criticise Trump at the awards. Host Jimmy Fallon compared him to King Joffrey from Game of Thrones, and Hugh Laurie accepted his award “on behalf of psychopathic billionaires everywhere.” But Streep, who had previously spoken for Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention, criticised Trump for mocking a disabled journalist, and spoke about the many foreigners living in America. “You and all of us in this room belong to the most vilified segments of America right now: Hollywood, foreigners, and the press,” she said, going on to list many celebrities who were born in foreign countries.
In true Trump fashion, the orange-haired buffoon expectedly took to Twitter to call Streep overrated. Yep. The man who will be replacing Barack Obama as President of the United States of America in less than a fortnight, continues to take time out of his day to troll celebrities.
Sure, it’s only a three word response, but Frank Ocean’s moves are so rare that the slightest hint of him being alive and part of the real world is exciting enough to report on (IMO anyway, and hey, it’s my website so I’ll do what I want.)
Frank Ocean has been announced to headline several festivals, including Panorama, NorthSide, Lovebox, Hangout and Sasquatch. His stunning album Blonde made many best-of end-of-year lists in 2016, including our own. It’s unlikely he’ll return to Australia any time soon, but our fingers are still tightly crossed.
Image: Tumblr