July 10th, 2012 - Frank Ocean releases his debut album, channel ORANGE, and the modern music industry is presented with a new prodigy.

However, on June 8th of that year, Frank Ocean had told everyone that his new album would be released on July 17th, purposefully giving a misleading date in order to counteract music piracy.

So when an Apple-sponsored live-stream appeared on Ocean's official website, with a date and timer set for the 1st of August, we should've been better prepared for the eventual disappointment.

Then an unconfirmed source told the New York Times that his sophomore album Boys Don't Cry would be released on August 5th, and on that date people checked on to the live-stream to find... Frank doing some DIY.

This was all in the midst of an image that Ocean released with a multitude of dates stamped on to a library card...

... the last of which says November 13th of this year, which is now the internet's latest guess as to when Boys Might Cry might be released, but the real question now is whether it even matters or not? Ladies and gentleman, Frank Ocean has played us like a drum, and he deserves a round of applause.

In the four years since channel ORANGE was released, Ocean could have gone the usual route of someone the music industry decides is the flavour of the month and hopped on every track that needed a contributing artist, but by and large, he kept quiet, only appearing only with the biggest of the big: Beyonce's "Superpower", Kanye West's "Frank's Track", Jay-Z's "Oceans".

At a time when the 'Surprise Album' is almost as common as a regular, well-conceived album launch, Ocean has everyone talking about his new album without ever saying it was coming out, or giving us a hint of what it might sound like.

However, off the back of everybody talking about his new album, now Frank Ocean's one and only previous album is back at the centre of attention. According to Forbes, Wikipedia searches for Frank Ocean are up 300% on last week, Facebook mentions have tripled, and on August 4th, "Frank Ocean" was the top trending search on all of Google.

His YouTube and Vivo video views both doubled in the past week, and while the figures have yet to be released, a similar uptick in streaming and sales must be on the cards. All this, and no album.

Well played, Frank. Well played.