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Frank Ocean's 'Nostalgia, Ultra' Gets Commercial Release via Def Jam

News May 19 2011

By Gregory AdamsEarlier this year, Odd Future crooner Frank Ocean released the smooth, hyper-sexual and weird Nostalgia, Ultra mixtape, to a ton of critical acclaim. Over here at Exclaim!, we called the freebie a "desolate, thumping and sophisticated" piece of work, which just happened to have a song about smoking pot with a porn star ("Novacane"). Turns out Ocean had originally planned to release the record on Def Jam, but the label passed. A few months and a whole lot of buzz later, the label is rectifying its mistake and issuing a commercial version of the record.

It's unclear if all 14 tracks on the original mixtape will be on this new version, or if any new tracks will appear, but Def Jam has set a release date of July 26. "Novacane" will be issued as a single on iTunes May 31.

Even if the record gets a glossy makeover, it's a little weird to have to pay for something that's been available for free for so long, but this seems par for the course for the Odd Future crew