Frank Ocean Deep Cuts, Ranked
Frank Ocean’s Boys Don’t Cry is due, quite literally, any moment. Here are some of the singer’s best, lesser known tracks.
Frank Ocean’s follow up to 2012’s Channel Orange, titled Boys Don’t Cry, occupies a sort of mythic space in fans’ minds. By all logic the album should be arriving at some point in the near future, yet it’s easy to imagine it not existing at all. This week, a mysterious stream popped up on Ocean’s website featuring the singer in a large warehouse building a set of boxes, or stairs, or something. Shortly after, the New York Times reported that, “according to a source,” the album would be made available as an Apple Music exclusive on Friday, with Frank’s rumored zine available in Apple stores the same day. Of course, none of that happened and the bizarre stream, attributed to artist Francisco Soriano, loops on.
Frank has, however, left clues about what he’s been up to all these years. The singer’s sporadic output — song snippets, heartfelt open letters, lyric sheets — are all he officially wants us to know about and honestly, that’s okay. Frank Ocean’s deep cuts, the one-offs that make blog headlines the day they happen, are a trove of remarkable spurts of creativity for anyone who wants to spend the time to sit with them. That’s the appeal of Ocean’s music in the first place.
While the wait for new music remains unbearable, here are the reminders of why Frank’s releases are so special.
6. “I Miss You”
5. “Wise Man”
4. “Blue Whale”
3. When he remixed “Versace” with no audio.
