Around this time, he also met producer Tricky Stewart, who helped land Ocean a contract with Def Jam as a solo artist. The following year, Ocean officially changed his name to Christopher Francis Ocean, believing that the new name would look better on magazine covers.
Still riding the wave of success that followed his release of nostalgia, ULTRA , Ocean began to work on a follow-up album to be released by Def Jam records, with whom he had begun to repair his relationship.
In June , he unveiled a new track, Pyramids , again via his Tumblr site. The following month he performed another track from the album on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Also in July, Ocean posted an open letter to his website, in which he revealed that he had feelings for both men and women.
Many of his colleagues in the music business immediately showed their public support for his courageous decision to be open about his sexuality, although he made a point not to label his orientation. Within hours of its release, the album was No. Ocean also made the album available to stream in full on his Tumblr site.
Most notably, the album went on to win the Grammy Award for best urban contemporary album. So that probably was noticeable. It was a driver to get out of the neighborhood. I remember feeling no attachment to music necessarily, more an attachment to what music could bring if I succeeded, you know, financially. And that meant freedom from my situation at the time, and maybe what I was projecting onto my own future.
You now have this major platform as an artist and your own cultural power. How do you personally incentivize people to vote or to care? The stakes are high.
I still think I have a choice to be optimistic about the possibilities. Yeah, I have a pool. Doing four laps underwater is hard. I do something every day just to rebel against this nonverbal part of my personality that would have me be unproductive.
Every single day it gets me ready for everything that comes after I leave my house. The expectation for artists to be vulnerable and truthful is a lot, you know? Like, in order for me to satisfy expectations, there needs to be an outpouring of my heart or my experiences in a very truthful, vulnerable way.
Like, give me a full motion-picture fantasy. In what is now music industry lore, in you released the Endless visual album to fulfill your contract with your label, Def Jam, and put out Blonde independently the following day. When I worked on my first project, Nostalgia, Ultra , I hardly told anyone. This is just an aside, maybe, but every day I wake up shocked that I do what I do for a living, and at the strangeness of being a figure that is asked questions, and that people want to talk about my thoughts or my anything.
What was it like to work in two different orbits on Endless and Blonde at the same time? When I do look back, I feel like from Channel Orange to Blonde was a big jump for me in terms of not just the way things sounded but the way things looked and were glued together. When it went according to plan, it felt like a huge relief. Then, as the aughts fell into a new decade, some kind of cosmic switch seemed to flip. He signed a major label contract with Def Jam that was finalized in January Later that year, he officially changed his name to Frank Ocean.
He'd finally been recognized as a solo talent, and his career had found a launching pad. In a movie, this would've been the moment when he got swept up into stardom, swimming in money and getting showered with praise. Perhaps that would've been the story you're about to read, were Ocean a more conventional artist. Perhaps if he were easier to exploit, willing to sacrifice his artistic vision, or eager to gain approval from traditional seats of power, this would be a straightforward tale of discovery and success.
We all know by now that he's a singular talent. But alongside his emotionally piercing lyrics, lavish sonic architectures, and meticulous production, the year-old New Orleans native has weaved his way through the public eye with astonishing grace and intention — forging ahead in search of artistic purity and freedom in a way that's inextricable from his music.
Ocean said it quickly became clear that his label had no intentions of providing the resources a new artist needs to create a studio debut, let alone find an audience for it. But instead of shrinking or waiting or negotiating, Ocean quietly self-funded and recorded his debut mixtape "Nostalgia, Ultra" so quietly, in fact, that his label didn't realize it had been made by the same Lonny Breaux they'd already signed.
He released it online for free in early It was hardly the sensational drop that it would be today, but it became an underground hit. Most importantly, it was met with enough acclaim to give him leverage with Def Jam. The next five years of Ocean's career have been so heavily and devotedly mythologized that most people know the story by heart.
The lead single from his debut studio album, "Thinkin Bout You," put him on mainstream radars in early Then, days before "Channel Orange" was set to drop , he posted a profoundly moving thank-you note on Tumblr that revealed the album's main source of inspiration: his first love, who was a man.
Much like his lyricism, Ocean's note was a mosaic of feelings and details about a formative experience, devoid of judgments or limitations. Instead of labeling his sexuality in any specific way, he illustrated a dynamic understanding of queer love and our expansive, unpredictable human experience.
Looking back, it's difficult to overstate just how groundbreaking and brave this letter was — especially for someone even tangentially related to the hip-hop community, where systemic homophobia runs deep. Suffice it to say, many so-called "fans" said they'd never listen to "Thinkin Bout You" the same way or at all ever again. But as you know, "Channel Orange" transcended any worries that Ocean would be reduced to "the gay singer. Play Track Add to queue.
Features 40 Show All. How Tumblr Helped Queer Mainstream Pop The look and language of pop this decade took notes from queer users on the microblogging site. The Best Albums of the s. The Best Songs of the s. Pitchfork Founder Ryan Schreiber on the Music of His Life As he moves on from the company he began, the year-old takes a look back at the songs and albums that have meant the most to him, five years at a time. The Pitch 28 Show All. It Did Not Deliver. Frank Ocean Finally Played a U.
0コメント