History Music / FrankOcean

Ocean's debut album ''channel ORANGE'' was released in summer 2012 to some of the strongest critical acclaim of any album that year, as well as a UsefulNotes/GrammyAward for Best Urban Contemporary Album and a nomination for Album of the Year. The album's thematic focus on unrequited love drew significant attention due to its recurring use of male subjects and pronouns, which became an area of special interest after Ocean shared an open letter prior to the album's release in which he stated that his first love was a man. The release of both the album and the letter has since been considered a watershed moment in forecasting the shifting sentiments and increased acceptance of the hip-hop world towards the LGBT community over the coming decade. While Ocean has never to this day specified a label for his sexuality, he has since become known as one of the highest-profile openly LGBT male stars in R&B music and an icon for the community.

** BarefootSuicide "kick off my shoes/and swim good"

* DownerEnding: "Swim Good" and "Super Rich Kids".
** Played with in "Strawberry Swing", but hey, at least [[Franchise/{{Superman}} whoever was in that spaceship got off the planet...]]

* LetsJustBeFriends: His ''newly married wife'' pulls this on him in "American Wedding".

** "Super Rich Kids" references Music/MaryJBlige's "Real Love" with an interpolation of its chorus ("Real love, I'm searching for a real love"). The party sounds from the background of the song also reference the show ''Series/GoodTimes'' and sample the song "Got to Give It Up" by Music/MarvinGaye.

** "Lovecrimes" from Nostalgia, Ultra includes a long sample of Nicole Kidman's speech about jealousy from ''Film/EyesWideShut'' (a film also name dropped earlier in the song "Novocane")
** during the "Bitches Talking" skit, Frank is trying to listen to Kid A in his car, when his female companion(s) ask him to put on some Music/{{Jodeci}}
-->"what is a Music/RadioHead anyway (anyway)"

Adopting the name Frank Ocean (believed, but never confirmed, to have been inspired by the original ''Film/OceansEleven'' film, in which '''Music/{{Frank|Sinatra}}''' [[Music/FrankSinatra Sinatra]], a muse of his, plays Danny '''Ocean'''), he joined the [[{{Music/OFWGKTA}} Odd Future]] music collective after meeting them in 2009. The same year, he signed a writing contract with Def Jam but ended up feeling neglected by the label, to which he began work on an independent mixtape. The end result, ''nostalgia, ULTRA.'', was self-released in 2011 to critical acclaim, earning him fans and future collaborators in high places (namely Music/KanyeWest, and through him Beyoncé and Music/JayZ). However, the mixtape was not without similarly high-profile opposition, namely from the Music/{{Eagles}}, whose legal action towards the track "American Wedding" (a remake of their song "Hotel California" that they took far less than kindly to) has kept the entire mixtape inaccessible from streaming for over a decade.

* RearrangeTheSong: Did this with multiple songs during his 2023 Coachella performance. Among other things, he opened the show with a {{shoegaze}}y sounding version of "Novacane", did acoustic versions of "Self Control" and "Pink + White", and electronic versions of "White Ferrari" and "Solo".

** "Seigfried" contains the line [[Music/ElliottSmith "This is not my life, it's just a fond farewell to a friend"]].

** "Super Rich Kids" references Music/MaryJBlige with the line "Real love, I'm searching for a real love". The party sounds from the background of the song also reference the show ''Series/GoodTimes'' and samples the song "Got to Give It Up" by Music/MarvinGaye.

** John Mayer lays down some sweet guitar licks on "White" but doesn't sing.

While Ocean confirmed in 2013 that work had begun on his follow-up album, it would take until the end of summer 2016 for said album -- ''Blonde'', originally titled ''Boys Don't Cry'' -- to release after one of the most infamous and widely publicized album delays of its time. (Seriously; even ''Music/{{Adele}}'' [[https://www.vulture.com/2015/11/adele-wants-frank-oceans-album.html complained]].) However, several weeks prior, a cryptic livestream began on Apple Music that showed Ocean building a staircase in a warehouse with new instrumentals playing in the background. This would eventually become the visual component of another new album, ''Endless'', which Ocean released to fulfill his Def Jam contract as the final step in a "seven-year chess game" Ocean enacted to part ways with the label, which has been said to have finessed the label out of tens of millions of dollars. ''Blonde'' was subsequently a fully independent release.

Adopting the name Frank Ocean (believed, but never confirmed, to have been inspired by the original ''Film/OceansEleven'' film, in which '''Creator/{{Frank|Sinatra}}''' [[Creator/FrankSinatra Sinatra]], a muse of his, plays Danny '''Ocean'''), he joined the [[{{Music/OFWGKTA}} Odd Future]] music collective after meeting them in 2009. The same year, he signed a writing contract with Def Jam but ended up feeling neglected by the label, to which he began work on an independent mixtape. The end result, ''nostalgia, ULTRA.'', was self-released in 2011 to critical acclaim, earning him fans and future collaborators in high places (namely Music/KanyeWest, and through him Beyoncé and Music/JayZ). However, the mixtape was not without similarly high-profile opposition, namely from the Music/{{Eagles}}, whose legal action towards the track "American Wedding" (a remake of their song "Hotel California" that they took far less than kindly to) has kept the entire mixtape inaccessible from streaming for over a decade.