After releasing a personal essay last week revealing that he was batting a three or above on the Kinsey Scale, Frank Ocean released his first album, Channel Orange, a week early on iTunes, where it’s so far earned some pretty bonkers positive reviews and is already approaching modern day classic status. Except Target has decided not to carry the album in its stores for reasons they haven’t yet really explained although if we had to guess … The Huffington Post reports:
A statement from the company implied the digital exclusive was to blame for the decision to not sell Channel Orange: “At Target, we focus on offering our guests a wide assortment of physical CDs, so our selection of new releases is dedicated to physical CDs rather than titles that are released digitally in advance of the street date.”
Ocean’s manager and Odd Future’s father figure Christian Clancy tweeted, “Target has refused to carry Frank’s album because of iTunes exclusive. Interesting since they also donate to non-equal rights organizations.” He later deleted the tweets and recanted, but Target, no doubt hoping to head off a MN Forward-like controversy, swiftly moved to dispel any notions that politics was to blame for their move.
So basically, Target is refusing to carry one of the most talked-about and critically-acclaimed albums of the year, and it either has to do with the artist coming out or they’re just in a snit because the album launched earlier on iTunes? Yes, that makes all kinds of business sense. Maybe later they can get rid of their heating systems and replace it with an oven that burns money.
About Jeremy Feist
