The Internet has (once again) whipped itself into a collective frenzy over the new Frank Ocean album, Boys Don’t Cry. Reports earlier this week suggested that the album, years delayed, would finally drop Friday, August 5, on Apple Music. But, as of this writing (10:40 p.m. EST), everything’s silent on that front. There’s still a possibility the R&B scion will slip it under deadline at 11:59 p.m. If you’ve been following the soap opera surrounding Boys Don’t Cry, or have ever been a Lauryn Hill fan, you know the pilot light of hope will be extinguished soon.
We all care about all this, of course, because Frank Ocean is a prolific musician and also a weirdo car guy. His debut studio album, Channel Orange, and landmark mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra are arguably the decade’s most inventive works. And after the latter dropped, Ocean set to building a cost-no-object sleeper BMW 3-Series, converting his old E30 to right-hand drive, and dropping a modern M3 engine between the fenders. When GQ caught up with him in 2012, Ocean and his crew did the photoshoot surrounded by an immaculate selection of old European metal. His songs are chock-full of car references, both sly and and overt. Listen to these lyrics, and also watch the screen in the background:
Brilliant. But Ocean is the deeply-afflicted (some might say “pretentious”) artist type. While his music is inarguably fantastic, it all moves along on his timeline. And, sometimes, it just feels like outright trolling. Dude has a huge chip on his shoulder from getting jerked around by the record industry early in his career. He takes a lot of pleasure in returning the favor.
So maybe we’ll get a new Frank Ocean album soon. Maybe we won’t. Maybe he’ll just livestream his transformation into a woodworking apprentice. Who knows? That’s part of the game. In the meantime, here’s “Swim Good” off Nostalgia, Ultra…
