Frank Ocean

Frank Ocean’s Catastrophic Coachella 2023 Performance At Least Included News About A New Album

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Yesterday (April 16), Frank Ocean headlined the final day of Coachella’s first weekend. It was a highly anticipated performance, but for a number of reasons, it did not go well at all. One attendee summarized, “I’ve never seen so many people walk out of a show so upset and confused. The amount of anticipation for this was extremely high, and I don’t think anyone was satisfied. Not even the diehard fans.”

If there was one silver lining to be had, though, it was that Ocean spoke about his next album.

At one point during the set, he took a couple minutes to give a short speech, which he started, “It’s been so long, but I have missed you. I want to talk about why I’m here, because it’s not because of a new album. It’s because… not that there’s not a new album, just like… but there’s not right now.”

A new album would certainly be a big deal, as Ocean hasn’t released one since 2016’s Blonde, which topped the charts and was one of the year’s most acclaimed projects.

Back to Ocean’s speech: He went on to speak about how his life “changed so much” over the past few years following the 2020 death of his brother, Ryan Breaux, and about how much Coachella meant to them both and the memories he had of attending the fest with Breaux. He also thanked fans for their support over the years before resuming his set.

Frank Ocean’s Highly Anticipated Coachella 2023 Performance Was A Disaster And Fans Are Beyond Upset

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Per setlist.fm, Frank Ocean performed at Finland’s Flow Festival in August 2017. Until this weekend, that was his most recent live show, but now, nearly six years later, Ocean returned to the stage yesterday (April 16) to headline Coachella. It… did not go well.

Even before Ocean took the stage, things weren’t looking good. It was revealed that his performance would not be livestreamed online, unlike the majority of other Coachella sets this year. Then, Ocean only started performing an hour after his set was supposed to begin, meaning he only ended up starting the show at around 11 p.m. PT. Given that, as the Coachella website notes, there was a midnight venue curfew on Sunday, Ocean’s set ended up having to be cut short. As setlist.fm notes, the set features 14 actual performances and a lot of other pre-recorded songs, mostly remixes, played over the speakers.

As for when the show was actually going on, people weren’t happy. Rolling Stone‘s Tomás Mier summarized his take on the situation, tweeting, “No, I didn’t enjoy Frank Ocean’s set. It was confusing. It was odd. it was not a Coachella headliner-worthy performance. I didn’t understand it. Maybe it wasn’t made for me to understand. Idk. I have more questions than I do answers. I’ve never seen so many people walk out of a show so upset and confused. The amount of anticipation for this was extremely high, and I don’t think anyone was satisfied. Not even the diehard fans. (And if you weren’t there… don’t talk lol.)

Check out some more reactions below.

Frank Ocean Started His Coachella Set An Hour Late With A Rousing Rendition Of ‘Novacane’

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While fans online felt the FOMO after learning Frank Ocean’s Coachella headlining set would not be livestreamed on the festival’s YouTube channel, fans in attendance worried he might not perform at all after an hour passed with no sign of the singer.

Sure, he’s pretty elusive and mysterious, but waiting over an hour had fans feeling antsy. Fortunately, he opened his set with a fan favorite that got the crowd back on his side: “Novacane,” his breakout single from the 2011 mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra.

After playing “Novacane,” he followed up with “Crack Rock,” “Bad Religion,” and “White Ferrari” before sharing his favorite Coachella memories with the assembled crowd, including catching Rae Sremmurd and Travis Scott. Although he admitted he didn’t like coming to the desert — thanks in part to a tendency to get respiratory infections from the flying dust — he thanked fans for coming out to see him after so long. His last Coachella appearance was over 10 years ago, in 2012.

Since the avant-garde R&B experimentalist released two studio albums, Channel Orange and Blonde, as well as a visual project, Endless. However, he’s been a scarce presence on festival stages and hasn’t toured much; before being booked to headline the canceled 2020 edition of Coachella, he hosted a series of DJ events in 2019 where he shared some of his first new music in years.

Speaking of new music, during his speech at Coachella, he cleared the air about that; he did not take the gig to promote a new project, although he said one is in the works.

Frank Ocean’s Headlining Coachella Set Wasn’t Livestreamed And Fans Were Seriously Not Happy About It

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Coachella has been one of the pioneer festivals when it comes to streaming its performances online but at the end of weekend one, fans were aghast to learn that one of the most anticipated sets wouldn’t be available on the festival’s YouTube live stream, just hours before the headlining set began.

Frank Ocean hasn’t performed live in… well, probably half a decade, outside of a few sporadic DJ sets. Fans were naturally psyched up to see him hit the stage in Indio, but then, it was announced by the YouTube Twitter account that “Frank Ocean is not scheduled to appear on the Coachella live stream” and unsurprisingly, all hell broke loose.

It makes sense that fans would be … shall we say “a bit out of sorts” over the news. The last time the elusive artist performed at the festival was in 2012, when he was accompanied onstage by BadBadNotGood as his backing band and performed such standouts from his catalog as “Novacane” and “Swim Good” from his breakout mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra before his critically-acclaimed debut album Channel Orange had hit the shelves.

Since then, he’s only released one other album, 2016’s equally warmly received Blonde, as well as the visual project Endless. There has been some speculation that he would be performing new songs from a rumored follow-up to Blonde or singing Nostalgia, Ultra in its entirety before releasing it on streaming, but even if neither were true, it’d be his first chance to perform either of his studio albums at Coachella — and many fans’ first chance to see him play, since his original headlining set was canceled in 2020 and he rarely performs live.

Now, it seems that those fans who weren’t able to make it to the festival in person will be feeling even more FOMO. This one just about sums up the general feeling on Twitter:

Frank Ocean’s Coachella Live Stream Seemingly Cancelled, Twitter Reacts

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The final hours of Coachella weekend one are winding down. Patrons are certainly eager to catch the most highly anticipated headliner of the weekend, Frank Ocean. The Blond artist’s set is due to begin at 10 PM PT. Many have been counting down the hours until showtime all weekend long. Thankfully for those who couldn’t make it to this year’s event, the festival has been streaming several performances live via YouTube. While fans of Ocean have been looking forward to watching his first concert in years from the comfort of their own homes, speculation began circulating online on Sunday (April 16) evening that Coachella won’t be giving us a glimpse into the final show of the night.

It’s worth noting that Friday and Saturday’s main events, Bad Bunny and BLACKPINK, both made their sets available to audiences at home. Today, however, acts like Bjork and Ocean were notably missing from the streaming schedule, causing major concern to fly. “When is Frank Ocean gonna stop the anonymous game?” one Twitter user openly pondered upon hearing the news. “You’re not [an] underground artist. We all know what you look and smell like and know your favourite colour.”

Frank Ocean Headlines Coachella 2023

Several others chimed in with memes and videos depicting their reaction to the potential cancellation. Though undeniably dramatic, the outrage is understandable considering tonight marks Ocean’s first performance since 2017. He previously trended online last week as music lovers realized he likely wouldn’t be dropping a new album ahead of his Coachella set as many anticipated. Rather, the 35-year-old has kept quiet as of late, with his last official release coming in the form of 2020’s “Cayendo” and “Dear April.”

Prior to that, 2019 gave us singles such as “DHL” and “In My Room,” while 2018 saw the arrival of “Moon River.” He hasn’t delivered a full-length project since 2016, though we’ve got our fingers crossed that will change soon. Scroll on to read more reactions to Coachella reportedly cancelling Frank Ocean’s live stream, and check back later for more music news updates.

Twitter Reacts to Word of Cancelled Live Stream

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What Time Does Frank Ocean Perform At Coachella 2023?

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Frank Ocean has been making headlines for a rumored collaboration with BMW and a viral new look. He’s also about to headline Coachella on April 16 and April 23 and fans are freaking out.

Festival attendees are restless for set times to know when to rush to stages to see their favorite performers, and finally, they’re out. Ocean’s highly anticipated set for the first weekend will be taking place at 10:05 p.m. PT on the Coachella stage, so concertgoers have to make sure to stick around late to catch him.

The Blonde musician was rumored to play Coachella before he was announced as a headliner. He was supposed to perform at the festival in 2020, which ended up being canceled due to COVID-19. He was unavailable for the 2022 dates, with festival co-founder Paul Tollett saying, “Right now, it’s the Wild West. I’m just trying to be as fair as I can to artists and to the fans to make sure that eventually they get to see everyone that we talked about.”

Other exciting acts taking the stage the same day as Frank include GloRilla, Fousheé, A Boogie With Da Hoodie, Latto, Rae Sremmurd, Sudan Archives, Noname, IDK, Dominic Fike, Willow, Pi’erre Bourne, and more. Find the full lineup here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Is BMW Teasing A Frank Ocean Collaboration?

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People love to speculate about Frank Ocean. To be fair, the “Ivy” singer is ever-mysterious and hasn’t released an album since the 2016 instant-classic Blonde. When rumors circulated about a Coachella performance, fans flipped out, and they ended up being right: He’s set to headline April 16 and 23.

Now, BMW are sparking conversation about a possible ad with Ocean. The company shared a clip at Coachella with an orange BMW E30 M3, which appears on the artwork of Ocean’s Nostalgia, Ultra mixtape. The caption encourages conspiring: “The past meets the future this week. As far as what comes next, we’ll let you guys prophesy.”

To Ocean fanatics, this seems like an obvious clue. They’re hoping that this means Nostalgia, Ultra will finally come to streaming. It came out in 2011, self-produced and released via his Tumblr. However, he got in trouble with The Eagles’ Don Henley for sampling “Hotel California” in his song “American Wedding”; Henley threatened to sue if he even performed the track.

Last year, there were rumors that Ocean was in talks with A24 and 2AM about writing and directing his own feature film. It wasn’t that surprising considering he wrote and directed the 46-minute film Endless to go with his album of the same title.