Member-only story
Why Can Some Artists Take Long Breaks Between Albums While Others Can’t?
Finding the best way to take a musical hiatus as an artist
When Blonde came out in 2016, I remember feeling like it’s been a lifetime since I last heard a Frank Ocean album. Several personal milestones occurred in the interim years. When Channel Orange came out, I was in my senior year of high school, gearing up for college and moving away from home.
After four years of college and my first post-college job, Blonde arrived. I lived in Louisiana then, fitting for the occasion, as Ocean was raised in the southern city of New Orleans. His return to the mainstream was extraordinary and featured songs that spoke to his experience as a twenty-something, making sense of his slow removal from childhood into early adulthood.
His comeback was a resounding success. However, I always thought, what if it wasn’t?
Would he take another 5-year hiatus to realign with his purpose and release an album then?
Would he quickly shift course and drop an album sooner rather than later to compensate for lost time?
For many artists, taking a musical hiatus is integral to their personal development. Ocean is no exception. In this piece, I explore the use of hiatuses by artists and the…
