This is Rj Knight with a response to Absolute Zero’s Music Thought “Music Thoughts : Frank Ocean is Back But Will He Have The Same Reach“. In my Rj Context, I made it easier to understand and perceive the Frank Ocean situation for those who do not know or understand the topic and subject matter (type of music, audience, time period, etc). Also It helps those who might not fully remember the events of yester year to properly put the question into context and form a personal opinion and or conclusion. In that I tried t stay as neutral as possible to Absolute Zero‘s question, ultimately will Frank Ocean have the same reach? I will now proceed to respond and answer to some degree that question.
—(read Rj Context, for information to response) —
Frank Ocean will probably not have the same reach has he did previously. There are many factors working against him, and are making it difficult for Frank Ocean to achieve similar levels of success. Despite this I think that Frank Ocean has the ability (albeit low chance) to achieve close to previous levels. Even if Frank Ocean does not reach his previous levels, I think his cold rates (people looking for his information, services or products) is still very solid to high.
So first I will go into why Frank Ocean could still be very successful and transition to why doubt exist about his ability to reach like before.
Frank Ocean‘s cold rates as I mentioned before are high. He has on Google search results, 90.2 million search results. This is a very sizeable number, especially when you put it in proper perspective and compare him to other R&B artist or artist currently doing music in general. To put this in further perspective if 5% of the people who searched for Frank ocean bought his new album. He would have 4.5 million albums sold, which is 4x platinum. If you take in the new data which slightly incorporates streaming results, Frank Ocean should go platinum. This of course will most likely need a major marketing campaign to do so.
Why will Frank Ocean need a major marketing campaign, because the search results form Youtube for Frank’s Track, and Memrise are very low. However with one hot single, this should boost the search results and increase the number of people listening to his older work. Further in Google Trends, his popularity is very low (talking solely about trending to current topics). This should greatly increase once he further becomes again a current topic.
If Frank Ocean has good sale numbers, and a hot single. The positive externalities will drive media coverage and additional organic Pop boost to his personal brand. Which will give Frank Ocean without the support of celebrity peerage, the ability to have a very successful music year (which would be even more impressive than his last music cycle). The narratives that existed before could be easily resurrected so it would not take much for him, with help from peerage to match or superseded his last cycle (If media and peers aid him).
With all that said why do I believe that Frank Ocean will not probably realize these results. Well, a simple but not often focused upon answer is the fact that Frank Ocean does not have an high enough work output.In the past Frank Ocean‘s production rates might have been okay. Sadly in today’s music market climate those rates are not standard and not positive. (Especially in music markets related to Hip Hop, which R&B seems to have so strongly become to the point its not even its own distinct sellable genre anymore). Frank Ocean wants to be creative and improve himself as an artist, to put out quality music, however the current products on the market are voluminous but not quality. This might be a great USP (unique Selling position) if it was for the fact that Frank Ocean‘s brand is still immature and not relatively fixed in culture(example Jay Z, Kanye West, Beyonce, R Kelly, etc).
To elaborate slightly, Frank Ocean really has had only one major project (which was very successful) and if a consumer wants something creative, new or good, its easy for them to find new artist who are doing that. For established artist it seems to make more sense for them to keep making voluminous music, and riding waves with occasional premium music. It would be more plausible to do the Dr. Dre and or Kanye West approach to music if his personal brand was more mature.
The years of wait time for a product, really is huge because the music climate can change greatly and R&B is not as vital as it use to be. This can be mitigated if Frank Ocean was doing more feature work. If he appeared on more projects like what he did with Kanye West Life of Pablo‘s original song “Wolves“. This would have kept him more relevant and helped his personal brand alot. This was something he did not do and I do not seem him remedying in the near future.
Another similar problem for his personal brand is the fall of his team Odd Future. Their Google Trends and search results are even lower than Frank Oceans. The group has not put out any work that has been popular or trending in time since Frank Ocean‘s last project Channel Orange. If they had been productive during that time (making music, featuring, etc) it would have extended the awareness and anticipation for Frank Ocean‘s personal brand. Worse yet, the group seems to have internal problems and may be further fragmenting as I write this response.
Minus Odd Future, subtract the initial free media social justice and equality agenda campaign, including lower market awareness, reduced economy and lessened celebrity impact (focus on their own projects, most in a down buzz), its hard to see Frank Ocean having a high probability to superseded his previous cycles success levels. While it is not impossible because of Frank’s latent abilities. It still is hard to imagine because Frank Ocean was not doing the work necessary before to keep awareness and his team has a very Odd future. It would help if he tested the waters over had a mix tape in the time with even generic material but sadly this was not implemented. He also doesn’t have any controversies with other celebrities like Chris Brown to have people thinking about his name (do not think these are actually good things). Its just hard to see him having the same levels of success but I can see Frank Ocean being very comfortable as an artist. (Why, I see Frank Ocean being a comfortably successful artist)
Please read reference article for Rj Context
Music Thoughts : Frank Ocean is Back But Will He Have The Same Reach(Rj Knight context)
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