Yes, Frank Ocean’s new album is actually available.
No, it’s not called ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ – that’s the 360-page magazine that the physical version of the album is package with. No, it’s not called ‘Endless’ – it turns out the 45-minute visual album that Ocean released through Apple last week isn’t the full new album.
But yes, ‘Blond’ (also spelt ‘Blonde’ in its packaging, although the ‘e’ is lost for the cover) is an Apple digital exclusive for now, through Apple Music to stream and the iTunes Store to buy.
That’s another major artist putting their album out through Apple in 2016, although we’d expect ‘Blond’ to be available to stream on rival services within a week or two, rather than be a longer-term exclusive.
On a creative level, we’re interested in the visual aspects to Ocean’s new work: besides ‘Endless’ he also debuted a new music video for album track ‘Nikes’ this weekend: described by the Guardian as “a torrent of surreal imagery including a rapping chihuahua, a man clambering over theatre seats while dressed as Satan, naked backsides covered in glitter and Ocean rolling around a stage dressed in white”.
Which means we’ll have to come up with another theme for the Music Ally Christmas party now…
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