Frank Ocean Debuts ‘Channel Orange’ Album A Week Early, Appears on ‘Fallon’ in Viral Marketing Blitz (VIDEO)

Frank Ocean has been trending for almost a week since he opened up about his sexuality in an evocative Tumblr post, which has been cited as a landmark moment for the R&B and hip-hop music industry.

Last night, the singer/songwriter made his television debut on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, where Ocean announced that his first studio album Channel Orange would be streaming online for the next 24 hours on his Tumblr and would go on sale a full week early. iTunes released the album today and it hit the No. 1 spot within an hour.

According to Def Jam, aside from Ocean’s “coming out” post, this was all part of Channel Orange‘s unusual (but so-far quite effective) marketing strategy.

Ocean is best known as a member of hip-hop group Odd Future with Tyler, the Creator, as well as for having written songs for Beyonce, Justin Bieber, and John Legend. He was also featured on two tracks from Jay-Z and Kanye West’s album, “Watch the Throne.”

The album has been trending Worldwide on Twitter all day. According to Topsy.com, “Frank Ocean” has been mentioned roughly 55,000 times in the past day and 254,000 times in the past week, followed by “Channel Orange” with 31,000 mentions in the past day.

Channel Orange will go down as one of the most important albums ever for the music BUSINESS. Word of mouth, no radio, 10 min 1st single…

— Sickamore (@Sickamore) July 10, 2012

André 3k verse on Pink Matter was too real. #channelORANGE — JaJuan Johnson (@JaJuanJohnson) July 10, 2012

Channel Orange is the first album I’ve actually bought in a while… — TED(@itsrealTED) July 10, 2012

Listening to @frank_ocean #channelorange right now… Along with the rest of the universe

— Lauren Toyota (@laurentoyota) July 10, 2012

Frank Ocean revealing that statement about his sexuality a week before Channel Orange dropped was marketing genius!! #Salute

— Ronnie Beale (@RonnieB_Studios) July 10, 2012

Accompanied by house band, The Roots, Ocean performed his song “Bad Religion” on Fallon, which chronicles his unrequited love for another man.