BITCH OPINIONS

IT’S STILL FRANK. words by Taylor McCloud illustration by Tanner Hogan

“IT WAS FRANK OR BUST FOR THESE KIDS,” said a recent Bandier graduate in attendance at Tyler the Creator’s 2019 Camp Flog Gnaw festival, about Frank Ocean’s complete lack of appearance. “[It was] a wild moment. The Frank power is too real.” Ocean wasn’t booked for the festival and when Drake took the stage as the final act of the two-day festival, he was booed off stage. The crowd chanted “We want Frank!” in unison. They had expected Ocean to be the festival’s secret headliner, because of Ocean and Tyler’s close ties before they rose to fame. But he wasn’t. Drake met the boos with reason. He said he’d keep performing or leave; it was up to them. They kept booing, so he left. The show was over. Ocean never showed up. Fans speculated that maybe this would be his grand entrance back into the mainstream music world, after releasing two singles back to back this fall. But in keeping with his track record of refusing to conform to expectations, he was nowhere to be found.

The reverence of his fans sets Frank Ocean apart from other musicians. He isn’t the rockstartype or the mainstream megastar. Much like 80s music fans characterizing Prince as a deity, Ocean’s fans swear he is other-worldly. They cling to every bit of information about any possible new release, or, if there is a God, a new album. They flood social media with memes, fan pages, inspired artwork, covers and nearly every type of tribute to the reclusive artist. Whether that’s because his audience is full of 20-somethings who had an Odd Future phase in high school, or because the transition in “Nights” is just that good, it’s clear his connection with his fanbase is stronger and more emotional than many of his contemporary counterparts.

Isaac Lewis, whose debut album, Pareidolia, released in 2018, calls Ocean a musical influence because of his honest songwriting and production, but said it’s scarcity that drives the massive hype. “People hold [Ocean’s] songs with more weight because they’re few and far between, whereas other artists that people are, rightfully so, stans of, have a lot more music they can bounce back and

forth between,” Lewis says.

After 2011’s nostalgia, ULTRA and 2012’s Channel Orange, the wait for new music was tantalizing. So when Ocean began live-streaming the inside of a warehouse on his website four years later in August, 2016, internet users spent night after night watching it, waiting for something to happen. Eventually, we were rewarded with the visual album, Endless, and days later, the critically acclaimed Blonde.

Blonde, recently named Pitchfork’s #1 Album of the 2010s, remains a staple on social media and in the three years since its release, in the top half of Apple Music’s Top Albums list. But that’s how it is. Frank Ocean is a big deal when he’s not releasing music and an even bigger one when he is. When “DHL” released in October, my phone lit up: “New Frank single.”

Theories about albums and the supposed symbolism of the single’s artwork circulated on Reddit and Twitter saw much of the same, but admittedly there wasn’t the same buzz as usual for a Frank Ocean release. Maybe because “DHL” sounds different from Blonde and his handful of releases since.

I listened for the first time the morning after it released. The first chords hit me in the chest but monotony took hold from there. Around a subdued hook about getting drugs in the mail, Frank rapped like he said he’d been practicing in a September interview with W Magazine. There wasn’t anything in your face and, for the first time, I could understand the lackluster response and why @yourstrulymoody on Twitter would post, “New frank was mid but y’all aren’t ready to talk about that…” But I still felt obligated to keep listening. Not in a “Your sister is pressing play your trainer is pressing play” kind of way, but in an I can’t miss this kind of way.

There’s a rarity to Frank Ocean’s music. I don’t even like writing his name without including both his first and last names because of it. It’s different. It sounds different. It’s layered different. It’s muddy but crisp. It’s rough but not. It’s like how the Apple ecosystem of phones, computers, and other connected devices isn’t

always perfect but seamless pairing and interfacing makes up for it, or how red hang tags and “AIR” Sharpied onto Nikes should look dumb but actually look the exact opposite. There are intricacies you don’t notice the first five times you listen to a song but are so obvious after the sixth time around. The background vocals on DHL’s hook create tension with lead vocals until they don’t.

Time has something to do with it. In an era when fans expect artists to release something every year, Frank Ocean doesn’t. “DHL” and “In My Room” were his first official releases since 2017’s “Provider.” Outside of a five-yearold Instagram profile and mostly dormant (but legendary) Tumblr page, Ocean has been little more than a shadow on social media. But that mystique, combined with the listeners’ need to figure out and appreciate the music, is a magnet. So when I asked my friend, Hunter Bruckner, if he liked “DHL” and was met with an “I-didn’t-but-can’t-admit-that” smile, I knew what was coming next.

“I didn’t love it,” Bruckner said. “But it’s still Frank.” JM