Frank Ocean, 'Boys Don't Cry'

I have taken the novel step of actually listening to this (new laptop, hadn't bothered to get itunes on it) and so far I like it?

(#wow would you look at that #scintillating take how could you produce such insights katherine #whoa)

Definitely less immediate than Channel Orange but it sounds heavenly.

I think the clumsy rollout prevented this from arriving with the boom it otherwise might have? Seems like he did himself no favors by releasing the leftovers first.

Endless definitely isn't leftover material

I dunno, it feels pretty secondary to the album

the staircase is the true standout

how's elliot smith's guest verse? he keeping the beef w/drake going?

people "wrestling" with this album dunno if i have the guts to listen to it

https://twitter.com/annkpowers/status/767825137907433474

music writers are making this album sound like a lot more work than it really is

detangling

i wish people wouldn't keep making us listen to music, can't we just lie down and rest

3 tracks in and.. shit this is great!

ok yeah .. goes a bit Secret Life Of Plants-y a few tracks further in.

If "Nikes" had come out a week or a month before the rest, it would get the credit it deserves.

average price for the mag on Ebay; $500 o_0

So apparently Mike Dean did the mastering on this and a lot of people think it sounds great? I just can't get into this thin, trebly sound.

This kind of has the same kind of hollow and rushed preset based production that Life of Pablo has.

According to wikipedia Mike Dean only worked on the Solo (reprise) track.

So much for art:

http://pitchfork.com/news/67748-frank-ocean-no-longer-on-def-jam-blonde-was-self-released/

Did David Carson design the magazine?

or did someone just rip his (ray gun magazine) style completely

damn @ lex getting sonned in a twitter beef

the framing of lex's piece isn't my favorite but the writing about this record is already 1) wild 2) mostly identically wild, in a way that it would never be about the other records he mentions

yup

like i am not thrilled at how many sentences i'm going to read about how the spelling of "blond/blonde" works in french

i like this record a good amount but the whole "i'm so moved i can't even put it into words" wave really ridiculous

Frank Ocean Reinvents R&B By Making An Album Without Bass

I'll give him one thing though. I remember back when Eminem started releasing albums so wack the fanboys were certain it was all a prank and that he had another, superior album up his sleeve. FO kinda actually did that with the release of Endless, an album so weak that everyone was relieved when there was another, slightly better one released right after it.

"Other people really enjoy this thing that I don't like/am only so-so about and that's Bad because they should be liking this Other Thing instead" is a weird stance to take.

I feel like it's awfully common here

that's the core of ILM

lex is an acquired taste

if i'd shaded k michelle as a ratchet reality tv joke while praising frank ocean would anyone have said a thing? (that's the subtext of all the "transcended r&b" stuff.) (and k michelle gets shaded every day on twitter for being a reality tv mess and it's deemed acceptable.)

If "Nikes" had come out a week or a month before the rest, it would get the credit it deserves.

― thrill of transgressin (Eazy), Monday, August 22, 2016 7:38 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is otm

Hmm...

http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7487032/frank-ocean-endless-album-straw-broke-universal-music-back-may-get-sued

It's also worked for independent artists before Ocean -- Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book became the first-ever streaming-only release to reach the Billboard 200 albums chart, debuting at No. 8 as an Apple Music exclusive in May. With Ocean almost certainly set to hit No. 1 this week via his digital-only release (in addition to streaming on Apple Music, it's for sale in the iTunes Store), it raises the question of how important a record label is at all in 2016, as services offer marketing and advance money that a label would otherwise provide.

Such a sick move. "After an interminable wait (in music industry standards, at least), Ocean fulfilled his contractual obligations, sources tell Billboard, and increased his potential profit share from 14 percent to 70 percent of total revenues from Blond within a 24-hour period, seemingly pulling a fast one on the biggest music company in the world in the process."

!!!!

I gotta be honest, I'm finding all this way more fasincating than the album.

it gives him better material

that's a pretty incredible story -- IF it works out for Ocean (ie, if Universal/Def Jam can't come up with a reason to sue him, which I'm sure they will). For sticking it to a major label, I give him props, just hope he isn't permanently blacklisted in the industry.

I'm not sure I like it. If he gets away with it, surely every label contract will become even more nefarious, right? Plus it resulted in a shit album being sold to his audience under false pretenses. It's... Not good?

this is a fun story but i feel like if getting out of a record contract was as easy as "deliver your label a fake album and then give the real thing to someone else" it would have been discovered before now

It has been.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_(Teenage_Fanclub_album)

Contractual obligations

@Frederik - it's only a bad precedent if Def Jam screwed him with a shit deal.

err, i mean - if his deal with Def Jam wasn't shitty, it's a bad precedent...

none of the examples in that thread happened in the last 25 years

in any event frank's issues with def jam go back pretty far, i wouldn't be surprised if they washed their hands of him a while back and were fine with letting him go if they recouped whatever money they put into the project

anyway this album is not quite as good as i was expecting but i like it a lot. i think it kinda starts weird, i like "nikes" but it doesn't really make much sense in the context of the album. the next few songs feel pretty channel orange-y and maybe out of place with what follows also. "solo" through "nights" is pretty incredible i think, none of the complaints people have about some of those tracks -- no beats, non-linear structures -- bother me, i think there's a lot to chew on lyrically and good hooks. "good guy" is maybe my fav song on this, i wish it was full-length but in general i like all the short songs on this. not quite sure how i feel about the final third of it... "godspeed" is pretty great, the album is pretty organ heavy and it's cool to hear him go more overt gospel even tho him in that context still sort of throws me for a loop. i like "white ferrari" but i also like bon iver... "seigfried" has a memorable ending but is overall a little ponderous i think and for being 9 minutes "futura free" ends up feeling kinda minor compared to how the last record ends.

ultimately i wish the beginning and ending stretches held up to the middle but there's enough stuff i like on either to where i think i'll play this all the way through a lot this year.

i'll admit that there are a bunch of points on this album where i don't know wtf he's talking about but the lyrics that are direct and not space-y i really connect w/ to the point that i don't even really care about the other stuff

Carl Wilson's take.