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Music

Frank Ocean Has Announced His Third Album, and It's Coming With a Magazine

Alert! Alert! Alert! This is not a drill.

Photo via Frank Ocean's Tumblr

Marking a year to the month he said he’d skip Coachella to finish his new album, Frank Ocean has finally announced its release for this summer, specifying July as a the general ball park. He broke the news via his Tumblr with the above image of him rifling through a stack of unreleased magazines, alongside the caption “I got two versions. I got twoooo versions” and the hashtags #ISSUE1 #ALBUM3 #JULY2015 #BOYSDONTCRY.

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There’s been a buttload of speculation about what this record could be, and we did our own fair share of that last September, trawling past mentions to garner a list of potential collaborators that ranged from Tame Impala and King Krule to Rick Rubin and Hit-Boy. Plus there was the wonky and swooning psychedelia of "Memrise," which he dropped four months ago. But if you like your facts clean and fresh from the Ocean, then the only thing Frank himself has said about this next album was to Zane Lowe in 2013: “It's another cohesive thing bordering on a concept album again. At the end of Channel Orange there's 'Golden Girl,' and I kind of want to extend that feeling into the next record.”

The most interesting revelation is that the record looks like it’s going to drop alongside Issue 1 of a magazine that Frank has also created which, from the image, looks like it will be called Boys Don’t Cry. We reckon it's also safe to assume it probably involves the work of British photographer and close Frank collaborator Michael Mayren, who has been captured by Frank periodically over the last year. Is it going to be 120 pages of photos, 15 pages of lyrics, or just one long thinkpiece? Shit if we know. But from the front cover, which seems to feature Ocean dressed as an anonymous crimson racing driver, you can guess that it’s somehow going to incorporate the love for big motor symbolism that is so thoroughly rooted in his music, videos and artwork.

Maybe the most pertinent question behind closed doors right now is which of the platforms in 2015’s music streaming mud fight is gonna flex enough muscle to guarantee some sort of online extravaganza around all this. The all star cast of Tidal? A timely riposte from Spotify? Or maybe a big and early scoop for Beats Music. Who knows / who cares? Delete as appropriate.

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