A guy living the high life, a clichéd love of fast cars with a new openness about his sexuality (shouting out to the gay bar he went to on a blind date). Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon sings outro on ‘White Ferrari too’.īlonde is all about Frank and his interactions with friends, family, strangers, crushes. Other tracks meander aimlessly yet Ocean continues to magnetise the listener like ‘Skyline To’ (where Lamar exists but is barely heard) while interpolations of songs from Beatles, Burt Bacharach and Elliott Smith appear adding familiarity. others, ‘Self Control’, feel like acoustic demos with some bare production until harmonised Frank drops in the memorable outro. ‘Pink + White’ is beautiful sunshine soul, ‘Solo’ is buoyed by one of the year’s most memorable choruses over barely more than an organ. Ocean’s sweet voice is one that is rare consuming, soulful, nimble, honey-toned and it responsible for all of the highlights here. There’s an overall sense of the artist soaking up his experiences as positive and striving forward to be more aware, content, loved, loving, present. ‘Ivy’ and ‘Pink + White’ suggest there’s gratitude for a failed relationship and the hurt it caused is deemed to be worth it ultimately. He enjoys it but thinks of his self-development as detailed on ‘Siegfried’ (“less morose and more present / Dwell on my gifts for a second”). Ocean parties, drives fast cars (and details them), does acid, shrooms, smokes weed, (all the while including a track where his mother warns him against substances). Only Andre 3000 (who appeared on Channel Orange too) gets to leave his mark, thrillingly so.īlonde has the air of an album penned in solitude an ultra-white pristine mansion at dusk (one in which he occasionally takes in the homeless as he admits). Even the calibre of the marquee guests on this thing are put into the deep background – to the point where you may not even realise Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé are on it until you’ve read the credits. The atmosphere is muted, the instrumentation minimal, beats and percussion are largely ignored. In fact, it feels like a more polished version of Endless, yet equally withdrawn, more fragmented and even more insular. Two days later, Blonde debuted and surprisingly barely feels unburdened with expectation. It remains to be seen if that’s true, but regardless, Endless had the feel of a clearing of decks, a reset, a warmup, an acknowledgement of the expectation. It’s been suggested since, that the visual album was Ocean fulfilling his obligation to his label Def Jam for another release ( Blonde appears to have been self-released). It was proceeded by Endless, a 45 minute visual album, that with was visually boring wallpaper (Frank working on a spiral staircase) but musically, a scattershot of fragmented music with a demo feel, albeit demos with James Blake, strings from Jonny Greenwood, an Isley Brothers cover and some German techno bookending it. When it finally arrived, you would be forgiven at first, for wondering what all the fuss was about, if Blonde (or Blond as it’s titled on the cover) was your first listen to a Frank Ocean release. The expectation was for songs that would resonant to the same level as ‘Thinking About You’, ‘Swim Good’ or ‘Lost’- grade A R&B music from a bright new talent. After its neverending goal post shifting release date since Frank Ocean first announced the retitled Boys Don’t Cry in April 2015, the hype and expectation had reached fever pitch more than once.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |