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Frank Ocean’s Blonde Vinyl: The £65 Secret Retailers Don’t Want You to Know

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Frank Ocean's Blonde Vinyl: The £65 Secret Retailers Don't Want You to Know

Right, let’s talk about Frank Ocean and why his Blonde vinyl has turned into the vinyl equivalent of concert ticket scalping.

2016 Black Friday pressings regularly sell for £1,200+ on eBay. Twelve hundred quid. For a record that originally cost £35. 

And here’s the mental bit: those same buyers could grab an identical-sounding reissue from Ocean’s official store for £65 when it restocks.

But the resellers don’t exactly advertise that, do they?

Here’s a REAL copy of Blonde on vinyl. Bought during the 24 hour Black Friday Sale. Please use this for QC purposes. Too many people here clearly don’t know what a real one looks like.
byu/deathwish_ASR inFrankOcean

The pricing situation is actually ridiculous

Pop onto Discogs right now and you’ll see 2022 reissues going for anywhere between £85 and £235. The median sits around £105, which already feels steep for a record that’s technically still in print.

Then you’ve got the 2016 originals floating around £800 minimum, often pushing past three grand for sealed copies.

What changed between 2016 and now? Not the music. Mike Dean mastered both versions, same lacquer cuts, same everything.

The difference is purely the date stamped on the runout groove and whether it says “Blond” or “Blonde” on the cover. That’s it.

Ocean basically invented the modern artificial scarcity model

Look, I get it – Ocean’s a perfectionist who spent four years between Channel Orange and Blonde. He famously bought himself out of his Def Jam contract specifically so he could control how his music gets released. Fair enough, artistic integrity and all that.

But the Black Friday 2016 drop? That was calculated. Twenty-four hours only, no warning, website crashes, the whole chaotic mess.

Then nothing for years while prices climbed and climbed. Our Culture Magazine reckons it made Blonde one of the priciest modern vinyl releases going, which tracks when you see what people actually pay.

The weird thing is Channel Orange never even got an official vinyl pressing. Endless barely got a proper release.

Ocean’s entire approach to physical media seems designed to make fans wait and pay through the nose later. Whether you think that’s genius marketing or taking the piss probably depends on your bank balance.

Here’s what nobody mentions about restocks

December 2022, Ocean quietly restocked Blonde vinyl on Blonded.co. No announcement, no fanfare. People who’d set up page monitors grabbed copies for retail while everyone else kept paying secondary market rates. It happened again in 2024, and based on recent sales data, it’ll probably happen again.

The reissues are identical where it matters. Same Mike Dean mastering, same gatefold packaging, same lyric inserts and poster.

You even get that slightly odd Kendall Roy artwork (yes, from Succession – don’t ask me why either). The only real differences are cosmetic: white cover instead of black and white, different typography on the spine.

Sound-wise? The 2022 reissue uses identical mastering to the 2016 original – both handled by Mike Dean with the same lacquer cuts.

Discogs reviews actually lean towards the 2022 pressing for having less surface noise, though whether that’s down to the pressing itself or just better storage conditions on newer copies is hard to say. Either way, you’re getting the same audio.

The bootleg problem nobody talks about properly

Coloured vinyl Blonde pressings are everywhere. Pink, white marble, yellow, you name it. All bootlegs. Every single one.

The only legitimate Frank Ocean Blonde vinyl that exists is black. If someone’s selling you a limited edition blue variant, they’re either lying or don’t know what they’ve got.

Some bootlegs sound alright – I’ve heard a few that are perfectly listenable – but you’re still paying for an unauthorised pressing that gives Ocean nothing. Might as well stream it and save your cash for when he actually restocks.

What I’d actually do if I wanted a copy

Forget the 2016 original unless you’re a completist with money to burn or you’re treating it as an investment (which, let’s be honest, most people paying four figures probably are).

Those prices aren’t coming down. That ship sailed around 2019 when everyone suddenly decided vinyl was cool again.

Don’t pay over £110 unless it’s sealed and you absolutely must have it tomorrow. Set up alerts on Blonded.co using a page monitoring tool – there’s free browser extensions that’ll ping you when the page changes.

Follow vinyl restock accounts on Twitter/X. Join the Frank Ocean Reddit. Someone always catches wind before stock actually drops.

Waiting for a restock beats giving Discogs flippers an extra hundred quid. The restocks do happen – just unpredictably. That’s the frustrating part.

The bit where I’m meant to give you a neat conclusion

There isn’t one really. Frank Ocean created artificial demand for Blonde vinyl and now collectors are stuck in this weird cycle where missing a restock means paying double or triple.

The album absolutely deserves to be in any serious R&B collection, but the pricing situation is taking liberties.

If you see it at retail, grab it immediately. If you missed it, join the rest of us refreshing Blonded.co like mugs and hoping for the best.

And whatever you do, don’t be the person paying over a grand for something that’ll probably restock in three months.

Though knowing Ocean’s release strategy, it might be three years. That’s the gamble, isn’t it?

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