It was a swirl of emotions as I wished I could drive to NYC just to get a chance, but also hopeful of moving into college and not wanting to miss the experience.īefore I go on, I should mention that August 20th happens to be my birthday. Stuck with my parents, I couldn’t play Endless endlessly, as Frank intended! I distinctly remember sitting in the car scrolling through the Frank Ocean subreddit, reading news of pop-up shops opening up in major cities. The following day, the 20th of August, I was beginning to move into my dorm for my freshman year of college. We all listened through the night and enjoyed what we had gotten. The songs here were too strange, too raw to not have some sort of hidden message behind their release. At the time, there was a weight lifted upon finally getting a follow-up to Channel Orange, but fans had a feeling that this couldn’t be it. Later that month, Endless was released as a 45 minute visual album on Apple Music. The sheer ingenuity of some people on that subreddit can not be understated as they stared at the website code, tried to connect the instrumentals, and so on. The internet exploded with rumors, as fans watched the livestream/recorded/what is happening day and night. In July, the hints became concrete with an infamous “library card” showing dates, and on August 1st, a video appeared on Frank’s website that showed him making something with wood and playing instrumentals.
I followed the subreddit and joined in on the conspiracy.
He is so open with his emotions, it’s hard not to see his music as a mirror that you can use to examine yourself. For those of you that can attest, there is something about Frank Ocean as a writer that is at once so deeply personal but also so direct and relatable. I’m not sure what made me finally listen to Channel Orange in the first place, maybe I just wanted to be a part of internet history, but man I was hooked. After months upon years of teases, missed release dates, and rumors, something was in the air that made it seem that this would be the year we finally get a follow up to Channel Orange. The subreddit for Frank Ocean, r/frankocean was abuzz with news of an upcoming album. I wasn’t one of Frank Ocean’s first fans, but you can be sure I’m one of his most dedicated.īack in the ancient history of 2016 (probably the last good year we’ve had) there was a small corner of the internet heating up.