"To me, he's like the black James Taylor." —Pharrell Williams insults rising R&B star Frank Ocean, while trying to praise him.

Two new projects are sparking a lot of discussion right now about the current state of R&B. The first is by The Weeknd, a mysterious singer (or group?) who has enjoyed a quick rise to critical-darling status since releasing the free debut album House of Balloons last week. The second is by Frank Ocean, the lone singer in Rap Group of the Moment, Odd Future. Ocean's album, nostalgia,Ultra, also excellent, also free, came out mere weeks before The Weeknd's project, so the two acts are getting joined together as poster children for what's being called a new wave of R&B. The terms being thrown around to describe this new [...]

The video for the first single from Bonnie Prince Billy's new album Wolfroy Goes to Town, which comes out in two weeks, is strikingly similar to the one for Frank Ocean's "Thinking About You," which we were pleasantly confused by yesterday. Billy's seems a little bit more in context, and has a super-terrific surprise ending, but what becomes most obvious with the benefit of watching them together is that these are two artists who who should collaborate on an R. Kelly cover. I hope they do "When a Woman's Fed Up."

I don't know that I have ever seen a video that has less to do with the song it accompanies than this new one from Frank Ocean. Apparently, I mean. You never know the inner workings of an artist's mind. But judging from this, it seems that the title of the song might have been shortened from "Thinking About You and Cowboys-and-Indians Revenge Fantasies and Meteors and Witch Doctors and Magical Gemstones and Also Maybe Time Travel."