Spotify responds to Frank Ocean’s ‘Blonde’ disappearing from service

Album was initially an Apple Music exclusive

Spotify has responded to reports that Frank Ocean‘s new album ‘Blonde’ had been pulled from the service less than a week after initially being made available on the platform.

‘Blonde’, one of 2016’s most anticipated releases, was initially an Apple Music streaming exclusive when it dropped on August 20. However, it later made its way to Spotify last Friday (September 9).

Reports yesterday suggested that the album had been removed from Spotify, with fans unable to play the record via the streaming service.

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The album has since returned to the platform, with Spotify telling Fader that a “small technical error” was responsible for the album briefly being unavailable to stream.

Read NME‘s track-by-track review of ‘Blonde’ here.

On September 1, a report by US business magazine Forbes estimated that Ocean had already made $1m (£750,000) from ‘Blonde’. The report explained that Ocean’s yield from the album is especially high because he released it on his own indie label, Boys Don’t Cry, after fulfilling his contractual obligations to majors Def Jam and Universal by putting out visual album ‘Endless’ beforehand.

Sources told Forbes that Ocean could be receiving anywhere between $5 and $7.50 (£3.80 and £5.30) for each copy of ‘Blonde’ purchased on iTunes for $9.99 (£7.50), whereas an artist on a major could expect to receive somewhere between $1.50 and $2.00 (£1.10 and £1.50) per copy.

Ocean finally released his second studio album ‘Blonde’ on August 20, over four years since the arrival of his highly acclaimed debut, ‘channel ORANGE’. ‘Blonde’ has since topped the album charts in both the UK and US.

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One of Ocean’s collaborators, keyboardist Buddy Ross, has recently spoken about the high level of mystery surrounding the ‘Blonde’ and ‘Endless’ projects.

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