Music

Frank Ocean Releases Two New Songs on Vinyl, Which Fans Quickly Leaked

Frank Ocean Releases Two New Songs on Vinyl, Which Fans Quickly Leaked

Photo by Clint Spaulding/Shutterstock

Frank Ocean has made two songs and their remixes available exclusively via vinyl, which has some fans praising his innovative approach to music distribution—while other fans (say, those who don’t have record players) are feeling slighted.

Ocean premiered the tracks for the first time back in October on his Beats 1 radio show “blended RADIO” and announced the vinyl release months ago, and now the songs have finally arrived. Fortunately, fans who didn’t order the singles can sate their thirst through a few clips that several anarchist fans posted online. The songs, entitled “April” and “Cayendo,” can be heard in part thanks to a few posts that have managed to gain immortality through digital shares.

Frank Ocean – Cayendo (Sango Remix)www.youtube.com

Ocean was supposed to headline Coachella this April, an event that was postponed to October. Still, his headlining gig had fans thinking that 2020 would see Ocean releasing new work, and even his first LP since 2016’s Blonde—an album that topped many best-of-decade lists and continues to resonate as strongly as ever, especially in uncertain times.

For a while, thanks to that album’s success, Ocean seemed to reach a kind of godlike status in the music industry. He was reclusive, mysterious, and untouchable, a genius in the truest sense. But his more recent efforts at PR, like the PrEP+ club event he hosted in New York, fizzled a bit as fans criticized the event’s lack of inclusivity and sensitivity.

“I’m an artist, it’s core to my job to imagine realities that don’t necessarily exist,” Ocean clarified in a Tumblr post about his intentions behind the event.

Most likely, Ocean’s decision to release new songs via vinyl is just another part of his great vision of a better or different world. Unfortunately, visions of a better world are always disconnected from the actuality of this world, and Ocean’s vision means we’ll all have to wait for the privilege to stream the songs until an indefinite date. Knowing the artist (or rather, knowing the reflection he wants us to know), it’ll pay off at some point—we’re just operating on his time.

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