Searching For Frank

The art of the long awaited ‘next album’

It has been a long time since Frank Ocean released his seminal ‘Channel orange’, an album that rocketed the R&B singer to fame, bagging him two Grammys and a loyal fan base desperate for new material. A few tracks have been released over the four years in which the singer has gone AWOL with little more than a raised eyebrow. With news from Ocean’s producer that the album could arrive within just a few weeks, I try to work out whether people still care when you’ve been gone for what seems like a lifetime.

 Jamie T fell off the face of the earth by 2010. The promising young indie/rap outfit seemed to be only getting better and better. Jamie T provided a voice to a new generation of teenagers that had grown up with The Libertines and Eminem, a British voice. The promise floated away with radio silence, people waited hesitantly for a third album then shrugged their shoulders and began to look for something new. Jamie returned in 2014 with ‘Carry On The Grudge’ with an NME cover, a few festival appearances and 12 pretty good songs. His last post was at his last public appearance at Reading Festival. By that point most of his fans had already shrugged and wandered away to find something new.

Although King Krule wasn’t gone for long, the lack of public appearances post ‘6 Feet Beneath The Moon’ completed his ‘coolest kid on the earth’ image. Perhaps it was his Peckham roots or the ginger’s love for rap but out of seemingly nowhere a generation of street culture kids began to listen to Krule, mixing the bluesy maximalist beats with skateboarding and streetwear. The album became a classic for those within the cities and the indie kids from the suburbs. For the indie kids, Mac DeMarco filled the hole that King Krule left with Canadian goof. The street culture that grew with King Krule either left to powder their noses or waited for the song maker to release something new. The album came in 2015, but not under the guise of King Krule- instead the Peckham local stuck with his birth name Archy Marshall for ‘A New Place 2 Drown’ and put down the guitar and picked up the sampler. The album was a low key beauty lost in the hype of Christmas and 2016. Marshall is performing mainly under the name ‘Edgar The Breathtaker’ with contemporaries such as Jamie Isaacs. Perhaps his silence is a hatred of publicity- or a desire to remain truly in the peripheral.

Last known image of Ocean, if found please return to the recording studio

Perhaps Dr Dre is the living, breathing proof that everyone stops caring when you delay an album for too long. Detox was the album that never became, a few previews such as the Eminem featuring ‘I Need A Doctor’ were released but the infamous finale to the G-Funk trilogy never came. Dre concentrated on the business affairs of music, making the headphone a sought after commodity. Dre released his first full length LP to coincide with his 2016 biopic ‘Straight Outta Compton’. The excitement existed until the think pieces came rolling in, unsurprisingly slating Dre for his sexist lyrics. An apology was released, people shrugged and got back to work. Dr Dre is a rap dinosaur, a reminder of the good old days, but also an unsightly reminder of what the old days were like for women.

The world doesn’t look promising for Frank Ocean, every act that has resurfaced from the wilderness in the past few years have been wrought with problems and lack of success. The only beacon of hope comes from an artist who left on top of the world, only to return an even bigger star. Adele’s comeback has been meteoric, ‘25’ has sold more than any artist in history and her 150 date world tour is completely sold out. There isn’t a singer bigger than Adele, she vanished and came back just like Frank Ocean could. However, Adele didn’t play with our expectations. We knew that she was off spending cash and having children in her downtime. Every other month we are told that ‘Channel orange’ 2.0 could be hitting shelves, yet search ‘frank ocean’ on twitter and you’ll see heartbroken teens waiting impatiently. Frank Ocean may excellent, but his constant game playing and stalling is making people bored.