When was the last you were really excited for something?

Christmas? Your birthday? The most recent Star Wars movies?

For fans of Frank Ocean, they've pretty much been on tenterhooks for album number 2 since album number 1. The wait for his new album, 'Boys Don't Cry', has been so long, it has become a running joke in popular culture. He's established himself as the biggest troll of the last two years, and the most elusive man in the industry - but he's had that label for longer than that.

 

Is the hype for the album justified? What is it that makes Frank Ocean the most intriguing artist of this generation? Having set the bar so high with previous releases, do 'anticipation' and 'quality of output' ever correlate?

The singer stuck out like a sore thumb among his Odd Future bandmates - quiet, brooding, mysterious (and the only one who could seemingly hold a note). Prior to this, he was a ghostwriter for some of the world's biggest artists, including John Legend and Justin Bieber.

Frank's emergence on the hip-hop/rap scene signaled a new voice within the genre and the industry, unbeknownst to Frank himself, and probably even the general public. His breakout mixtape 'nostalgia, ULTRA', came after Hurricane Katrina ravaged his home state, and saw him relocating to Los Angeles.

Frank used the burgeoning Odd Future hype to get a whole new audience invested in R&B. Unlike his group's projects and his fellow members' off-shoots at the time, Frank did not feel the weight of expectation for 'nostalgia, ULTRA', and that is reflected in its tracks. It's a tapestry of a record, boasting tracks like Intermission, The Break 2 and Bitches Talking, with Swim Good and Novocaine woven into the core of the record.

It came at a time when purists were questioning the direction of the genre. "Sensitivity has no place in hip-hop!", said those ruthlessly protective of their fragile masculinity. The Weeknd's 'House Of Balloon' mixtape was more palatable for some as it explored the connections between love and sexuality, all under a drug-fuelled haze. Frank, on the other hand, presented his emotions simply and genuinely, on themes of suicide, absentee fathers and feminism. He did it in a way that would become unique to him.

Commercially, this mixtape opened doors for Frank - it led to a feature on Kanye and Jay-Z's collaborative album, 'Watch The Throne'. He went on to write songs for Beyoncé's '4' album, and featured on her self-titled follow-up. Odd Future had a reputation for being goofy and outlandish - Frank was ready to be taken seriously as an artist.

Publications argue that it doesn't really matter how we reflect on 'nostalgia, ULTRA' - his first major label release, 'channel Orange' surpassed it critically upon release.

Anticipating the reaction the record would get, Frank took control of his own narrative, publishing a letter on his Tumblr divulging the details of a serious relationship he'd had with another man. He had been briefly touched on the subject on a track on 'nostalgia, ULTRA', "I believe that marriage isn't between a man and woman but between love and love".

 

But Frank, being the notoriously private man he is, never alluded to his sexual orientation himself - until now. He spoke candidly about the man that broke his heart, in the letter and on the album. It was a crucial moment that stunned the industry - a move that still would have been viewed as the 'risky' thing to do, especially within hip-hop and R&B. (If you considering the movement he had come from, fellow Odd Future member Tyler The Creator boasts some seriously homophobic lyricism in his back-catalogue). At a time when people were still belittling Drake for being sensitive, people finally understood that hip-hop and R&B could be used as a platform to talk about things beyond money, sexual prowess and materialism.

Prior to 'channel Orange' coming out, Frank told NME that the album "sounded like it had a cloud moving under it". He's maintained this dreamy, ethereal style throughout his career. The imagery is evocative - on Forest Gump, he uses football analogies and smoking imagery to again highlight how a man is expected to act, and what happens when a man strays from the norm.

Beyond that, does it really matter who or what Frank is singing about on 'channel Orange'? The short answer is no. Thematically, love and heartbreak are not things that heterosexuals can exclusively resonate with. 'channel Orange' is an album that speaks to people across the board. Even beyond lyricism, 'channel Orange' features the purest vocals ever produced by Frank Ocean. Regardless of what aspect you take from it, its importance as a body of work can not be overlooked.

It brings us full circle to 'Boys Don't Cry'. He teased a July 2015 release for the project - July 2015 came and went. His silence became deafening, until a library card containing a list of possible release dates was uploaded to his website, boysdontcry.com. Most recently, there has been an Apple live stream of him doing some woodwork, and an anonymous source telling The New York Times that the album will be released August 5th through the streaming service.

 

Is it wrong to expect so much from an artist? To heap added pressure on to an artist who we can assume is already under substantial pressure? In the case of any other artist, the answer would unequivocally be yes. But with Frank, it's a different story.

As consumers of music, Frank's fans have been waiting more than a year for this album, with no clarification as to why it was delayed or when it would eventually come. In any other industry which you are a supporter of, if you are promised a product, you should expect to get it. Failing that, you are at the very least owed an explanation as to why the product never came to fruition.

As well as that, Frank is embarking on the most confusing album-release strategy the industry as ever seen. That bizarre live-stream mentioned earlier is an Apple Music stream, meaning one can assume Frank's penned a deal with Apple for an exclusive album release. Avoiding 'freemium' services like Spotify makes sense for Frank as an artist looking to make money, but it's a slap in the face to people who downloaded his first mixtape for free from Odd Future's Bandcamp, (it's still available, by the way).

Frank has consistently set the bar high with his releases, so the natural reaction for fans and critics is excitement - they can't be blamed for that. And while 'hype doth not a good album make', the extensive wait will not affect the quality when it is eventually released.

Frank Ocean knows how to play the waiting game, but in the immortal words of Homer Simpson: "The waiting game sucks, let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos instead!"