Orange were digital, though it was released on physical CD mid-week following its 2012 iTunes launch.īut in order to keep capitalizing, Ocean will have to hit the road. Ocean’s records, however, typically do well online: The majority of first week sales for Ocean’s Def Jam debut Channel

Strange Music still sells 62% of its music as physical CDs-an anomaly in today’s music business. “If you say, ‘Hey, I’m going to give Apple Music or Tidal a one week exclusive on streaming,’ then you just decimated your physical order atīest Buy or Trans World ,” says Travis O’Guin, CEO of Kansas City, Mo.-based independent label Strange Music, which he cofounded with rapper Tech N9ne.

If he hopes to release it as a CD at a later date, he could have trouble.

Blonde has been effectively a digital-only album, with the only physical copies to date distributed inside free magazines that were given away as a promotion. Though Ocean looks like he made the right move, going independent and dropping the album exclusively on Apple Music had its fair share of risks. If Ocean had still been on Def Jam, he would have been owed $550,000, a good portion of which would likely have gone back to the label to pay off the advance he would have received. After removing those expenses, Ocean is left with an estimated $1 million in profit in just one week. Given that that album was independent, there was likely no advance and Ocean’s Boys Don’t Cry would have shouldered the $500,000 or so cost of making the release. Since Ocean released the album independently, sources close to the situation said that he could bank between $5 to $7.50 per equivalent album sold ( Blonde retails on iTunes for $9.99). A representative for Ocean could not be immediately reached for comment.Īpple, meanwhile, pockets a quarter of Blonde ’s list price while taking on marketing costs. Without a major label, Ocean stands to earn more than double from the record, which was released exclusively onĪpple Music and iTunes, than he would have done had he still been signed to Def Jam, based on FORBES’ calculations.Īdvances aside, in-demand artists signed to a major label-especially those who write their own songs-can typically earn between $1.50 to $2.00 per album sold. Blonde sold 276,000 equivalent album units since its release last Saturday release, according to Billboard. The decoupling has had tremendous financial implications for the 28-year-old singer.

Frank ocean albums in order