Frank Ocean’s ‘Blonde’ has been illegally downloaded over 750,000 times

Last weekend, Frank Ocean’s new album ‘Blonde’ finally gained release. However, it was only available exclusively to Apple Music subscribers.

New figures from Music Business Worldwide - citing MUSO, a company specialising in ‘piracy audience reconnection’ data analysis - show that ‘Blonde’ has been illegally downloaded more than 750,000 times since its Saturday 20th August release. These figures aren’t based on solitary track downloads - they’re for the full album.

Reports emerged earlier this week suggesting Frank Ocean has released “visual album” ‘Endless’ - another Apple Music exclusive - in order to escape his Def Jam / Universal contract. This then allowed him to self-release ‘Blonde’, taking a bigger share of the profits. Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grange is said to have banned all streaming exclusives going forwards, although it hasn’t been confirmed whether or not this is in light of recent events.

Read our verdict of ‘Blonde’ here.