Where am I going?
North, South East or West?
Up or Down?
Status Quo?
Where do I want to go?
Where do I want to be?
How am I going to get there?
What am I going to do about it?

Frank Ocean " Bad Religion" Live On Jimmy Fallon 7/09/12

Frank Ocean

On July 9, a day before Frank Ocean's debut album, channel ORANGE, was set to release, he made his television debut on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. With two singles already in rotation, "Thinkin Bout You" and "Pyramids," either seemed like a logical choice to perform in the most high-profile moment to date in his bubbling career. Neither was chosen, and instead he took the stage to perform "Bad Religion," the hauntingly beautiful, highly personal song that triggered the wave of questions pertaining to his sexual preferences a month prior. Instead of shying away from or denying said rumors, he now famously wrote a letter to his fans, and then seized the moment and sang that very song in his first real introduction to the masses.

Frank bared it all for four minutes, wearing his trademark red and white bandanna like Linus's blanket, allowing the emotion from the song and the moment to overwhelm him, be it verging on tears toward the end, grimacing on the climaxed high note that follows "I can never make him love me," and then, perhaps most wonderfully, smiling like a kid once his job of singing was finished and all that was left were the string orchestra and the Legendary Roots Crew behind him to bring it home. Again, he took a risk, and yet again, the risk paid off.

All the contextual factors that contributed to the performance's meaning were important, but if you strip them all away, you're still left in awe of how extraordinary a talent he is — and, more specifically, how utterly fantastic his voice is. The sheer effortlessness with which these notes leave his body is stunning, and the only thing that really tops listening to it is watching it. The version of "Bad Religion" on his album is wonderful, but hearing (and watching) him sing it live added an extra layer of rawness to the already raw track that, in his first performance of that stature, can't really ever be duplicated. He'll continue to perform the song live, but it'll never be quite like that. It was a moment.

Frank Ocean " Bad Religion" Live On Jimmy Fallon 7/09/12