“Speaking of Nirvana, it was there,” he says at the start of a hit-the-blunt-too-hard ramble about bliss and his mortality, which ends with Ocean quite literally alone and left in the dark.Įven with its alienating and, at times, overwhelming despair, Blonde is unmistakably different, diverse, and perplexing. In others, such with the vocal tantrum he has at the climax of ‘Ivy’, the opposite is true the album is littered with references to drug use to reach that same point in ‘ Solo’, ‘ Skyline To’ and ‘ Nights’.ĭespite these attempts, Ocean reconciles with the fact that they have passed on the album’s, and potentially his own as an artist, emotional peak, ‘ Siegfried’. No, really: Kanye was onto something when he called The Life of Pablo a living album, because while he’s on the right track to keep it available solely. Similarly to a few of the songs on Endless, he longs for the freedom of his youth “climb trees, Michael Jackson, it all ends here”, but in these moments of mental clarity, he can accept that they’re gone. In songs like ‘ Pink + White’, Ocean recreates the moments he seemingly wishes to hold onto forever, cruising down a freeway with the song’s muse he understands that he can’t control the way things change around him. Still, his headlining gig had fans thinking that 2020 would see Ocean releasing new work, and even his first LP since 2016s Blondean album that topped many best-of-decade lists and continues to resonate as strongly as ever, especially in uncertain times. Centrepiece ‘ Nights’, for example, has a shift exactly halfway through the album which supposedly celebrates Ocean’s duality a man who is bi-sexual, feminine and masculine, as explored in the album’s title. Ocean was supposed to headline Coachella this April, an event that was postponed to October. While the emotional highs and lows are as painfully beautiful as they were on ORANGE – particularly on ‘ Ivy’ and ‘ Siegfried’, which Ocean fans might remember from his 2013 tour – the mood and tone of several songs switch with Ocean’s fleeting thought. The aforementioned single makes a pointed reference to Trayvon Martin around its discussion of the pitfalls of consumerism, before diving into Ocean’s familiar territory of unrequited love, in-time with him taking centre stage in the video. In the song’s video, Frank holds up a framed photo of the. The album itself – from the rollout to the music, to the ‘ Nikes’ video, and even the fact that it was an extremely prosperous independent release – is a stroke of unashamed, unadulterated genius. RIP Trayvon, that nigga look just like me, he sings on Nikes, the opening track from Blonde, his wary exhale of a new album. While Endless felt like a labour to watch at 45 minutes, the rest of the album rollout was swift, almost effortless – so much so that the singer was asleep when the album came out. In typical Frank fashion, it was distant and confusing – the singer/songwriter could be seen cutting and putting together pieces of wood and metal, but he was a silhouette against a white backdrop, silent but steadily working.Īfter a small break in which Ocean fans thought all hope had been lost, the singer returned, this time littering the shimmering instrumental tracks with vocals and completing the visual album – something that is speculated to have been portraying the artist’s tiring working process. On August 1st, a video stream entitled Endless started up on his website, streamed via Apple Music.
The project is now streaming exclusively on Apple Music, but we’ve got the full Blonde lyrics below.After what felt like forever and a day, the wait for Frank Ocean’s follow-up album is over. Hopefully, they don't take him another 5 years to get to. I'm very hopeful that this is, however, not Frank's best still and there are higher highs in his career.
It took a long while to get here, but he finally released a follow-up to Channel Orange that is better than it. Fans have noticed the physical copy and Apple Music versions of the album have different track lists. Blonde is a beautiful album, it is Frank Ocean's best output. Earlier Saturday, Ocean dropped “Nikes” on Apple Music with an accompanying visual-"Nikes" is also the first song on Blonde.Ī physical copy of the album is included in Frank’s Boy’s Don’t Cry zine, which he also dropped this weekend at pop-up shops in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and London.
Just days after the release of his new visual album Endless, Frank Ocean has dropped Blonde, the next stage in the long awaited follow up to his critically acclaimed Channel Orange album.īlonde boasts 17 tracks and includes contributions from Kanye West, Beyoncé, Pharrell Williams, André 3000, and Kendrick Lamar. Foolishly, I believed Channel Orange was his best album because I liked its catchy melodies and accessible lyrics.