Pretty good hoax 'Frank's Diary' pretends to be surprise new Frank Ocean album
The cruelest mirage: a fake new Frank Ocean album

Pretty good hoax 'Frank's Diary' pretends to be surprise new Frank Ocean album

Dan Weiss

Click this link to a mysterious page called frankvault.com and you can get scammed out of $8.99 USD thinking you're purchasing a new Frank Ocean album called Frank's Diary right now.

The Coachella headliner and auteur behind Blonde, which Pitchfork and many others named the best album of the 2010s, has not actually confirmed any new album and the timing is suss, to say the least, with the very real surprise Tyler, the Creator album release occurring earlier today.

But you have to hand it to the mastermind that assembled this thing. Blonde was a number-one album in 2016 whose influence only grew and is still greatly felt in everyone from Justin Bieber's own new bedroom-soul album to Ocean's fellow OFWGKTA associate Steve Lacy. A new Frank Ocean album would be an enormous deal.

Too bad it's a bust, because the fake track listing (preserved for posterity below) includes features from SZA, Childish Gambino, Playboi Carti, Beyoncé, and some guy named Paul McCartney. At least one Needle Drop staffer who shall remain nameless found this all out the hard way. This is what happens when you don't release real new albums, Frank!

Frank's Diary tracklist:

  1. Been there
  2. Diary
  3. Til We Die
  4. FOMO
  5. Room Service
  6. Latest boo (feat. SZA)
  7. Love Bombing
  8. Black Card
  9. Traitors (feat. Beyoncé)
  10. Hiroshima
  11. LiL angel (feat. Childish Gambino)
  12. Secured
  13. 911 (feat. Playboi Carti)
  14. Homer
  15. GONE FRVR (feat. Paul McCartney)
  16. FORBIDDEN
  17. RIP Ryan

What do you think?

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