Unless you’ve been out of the loop, you may have heard that Frank Ocean will be a headliner at Coachella this year. The announcement of his return to the Coachella desert was exciting for fans, but that’s not all — speculation persists that Ocean will release a new album before his April performance. Her Campus reached out to Ocean’s team for comment, but did not hear back by the time of publication.
TikTok user @realmiketee has fueled the rumors of an upcoming Ocean album release. In the video, the user explains that once fans received their merch, which included a double-sided poster from Ocean’s website, Blonded, they were surprised with a cryptic message.
The back of the poster confirmed fan theories that hit singles “In My Room,” “DHL,” and “Dear April” were for an album. Ocean viewed traditional album releases as outdated. Ocean decided to drop these songs as singles and even tried to meet with record labels to help push this, but it didn’t go as planned. Ocean wanted more BlondedRadio events and to host raves worldwide as a rollout for his singles, but plans derailed due to COVID-19. The last sentence of the message is what has all his fans in a frenzy: “The Recording Artist has since changed his mind about the singles model, and is interested in more durational bodies of work.”
According to NME, Ocean was reportedly “shopping” his new album to record labels in September 2021. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s finished with his album, but it does suggest there’s something on the way. It’s looking promising, besties!
Despite social media rumors of his retirement, Ocean is still working on new music. Rosalía confirmed she’d been in the studio with him in her cover interview with i-D magazine. The Latin songstress states Ocean gave her advice she put into the Motomami single “SAOKO”: “Frank tells me to open the world like a nut.” Hopefully, this means we can expect a song with these two on the album?!
The fan speculation on the internet has been wild. From rumors of the album release date to featured artists, it’s safe to say Ocean’s fans are not OK (me included).
There is no telling when we’ll get this new album, but all the signs indicate that it may happen soon!