FRANK OCEAN, OLLY MURS PROVE BUZZWORTHY ON VIBE
Def Jam/IDJ's Ocean has caused a groundswell of excitement with his debut full-length, Channel Orange, which debuted at #2 on the HITS Album sales chart while available only on iTunes. A member of the Odd Future L.A. hip-hop collective, Ocean made waves when he announced on his Tumblr blog that a pair of songs on the new album were addressed to male love objects, but most critics have focused on his artistry and impressive lyric-writing, which bring to mind such soul men as Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson.
"Thinkin Bout You," the first single, is already attracting multi-format attention at Urban, Crossover and Urban AC, with a series of headline dates which included a show last Tuesday night at the Wiltern in L.A. The press, of course, has been rapturous, including a cover story in the N.Y. Times Arts & Leisure section, with a 9.5 Pitchfork review. See the complete entry here.
Murs is a finalist from the '09 season of X Factor U.K. who just came off opening the sold-out One Direction tour. His Syco/Columbia debut album, In Case You Didn't Know, comes out Sept. 25, but the single, "Heart Skips a Beat," is already scoring at Pop radio outlets like Z100, KDWB, KKHH, WKQI, WXSS and more. Dude is scoring on the social media fronts, too, with 2 million Facebook friends, 2.5m Twitter followers and 6.5m combined YouTube and VEVO views. This is yet another one from former Epic U.S. head Richard Griffiths' U.K. Modest Management stable with fellow managers Harry Magee and Sarah Thomas. For the complete Vibe entry, go here.
