R&B Auteur in High Demand: Frank Ocean
by Mike Conklin
Frank Ocean
by Mike Conklin
If you've not yet secured your tickets to see Frank Ocean's sold- out show at Terminal 5, you do still have some options: you could hit up Craigslist, where right around $100 will solve your problem, or you could head over to Stub Hub—which somehow manages to be even creepier than Craigslist—and pay a minimum of $170. And this is still 10 days before the show. It stands to reason that demand will only increase as it approaches.
The inherent evils of price-gouging aside, this is a good thing. Frank Ocean is a hugely refreshing addition to the landscape of pop music, and certainly not just because of the note he posted on his Tumblr, where he revealed that he's been involved in a same-sex relationship. On his first proper full-length, Channel Orange, the follow-up to last year's buzzed-about mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra, the 24-year-old singer displays a remarkable knack for various strains of R&B, from old-school, and really old-school, to the Weeknd-style stuff everyone's always describing as pillowy or dreamy.
One of the most exciting things about Ocean, though, is that he's never overshadowed by his stylistic decisions. He's the unabashed star of the show on Channel Orange—his vocals sit boldly high in, nearly atop, the mix, as if he can't bear the thought of you missing even one word he has to say. These songs are intense enough to seem confessional, and there's surely an element of that at play, but he's also been quick to point out that he's a storyteller. He's telling us about himself through characters that are rendered in exquisite, unexpected detail, and he's doing it with so much visceral emotion on display that you realize there's a sizable element of self-discovery at play as well. It'll be worth the price of admission, whatever it may be. Frank Ocean plays Terminal 5 on Thursday, July 26th.
Courtesy Def Jam
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