Frank Ocean
Last week, Frank Ocean released his first new material in years, even though it was not what fans expected. After waiting for a new album titled Boys Don’t Cry, the R&B singer put out a “visual album” via Apple Music titled Endless. However, sources promised more new material over the weekend from Ocean.
On Saturday morning, he did not disappoint, with the debut of a music video for “Nikes,” followed by the album Blonde. This appears to be the same album as Boys Don’t Cry, since Ocean released an oversized magazine with that title on the same day in surprise pop-up shows in New York City, London, Chicago and Los Angeles. The magazine came with a CD copy of Blonde (which is spelled Blond on some artwork for an unknown reason). The Boys Don’t Cry magazines were also given away for free to fans who arrived after the shops were announced with minimal advance notice, reports Billboard. Boys Don’t Cry featured a mix of photos, lyrics, poems (including one written by Kanye West as an ode to McDonald’s) and other writings.
Ocean also wrote a little about his new releases on Tumblr over the weekend, saying, “I had the time of my life making all of this. Thank you all. Especially those of you who never let me forget I had to finish. Which is basically every one of ya’ll. Haha. Love you.”
Specifically looking at the new song “Godspeed,” he wrote, “Boys do cry, but I don’t think I shed a tear for a good chunk of my teenage years. It’s surprisingly my favorite part of life so far. Surprising, to me, because the current phase is what I was asking the cosmos for when I was a kid. Maybe that part had its rough stretches too, but in my rearview mirror it’s getting small enough to convince myself it was all good. And really though… It’s still all good.”
