On this album, however, there’s only one clear reference to going on a date with another man. Ocean came out as gay immediately before releasing his debut, Orange Channel, in 2012. That ambiguity shows up in the album’s lyrics as well, many of which impressionistically get at the messiness of broken relationships. It’s all those things, glorying in genre-blurring ambiguity. Rolling Stone’s Jonah Weiner calls Blonde “a dizzy, trippy, druggy marvel.” Words such as feverish, avant-garde, post-millennial are among those being lobbed around. Accordingly, reviewers are raiding the thesaurus to appropriate off-the-beaten-path adjectives to articulate what Ocean’s beautiful, mesmerizing, disorienting blend of sonic influences sounds like. The singer’s second studio effort defies easy categorization. The latter part of the song is voice recordings of Ocean’s friends played over a version of Buddy Ross’ (Ocean’s keyboard player) “Running Around” that serves as a signifier in the album for the more nostalgic or skit-like parts (it appears on “Be Yourself” and “ Facebook Story” as well).If Radiohead, Drake, the Beach Boys and Prince-and maybe novelist William Faulker, too-teamed up to make an experimental, stream-of-consciousness, pop-rap-R&B-alt-electronica album, I’ll bet it would sound a lot like Frank Ocean’s critically heralded Blonde. Ocean runs through a gamut of different voices and production styles before silence splits the song. “Futura Free” is a nine-minute-long smorgasbord that shows the best parts on the album all in one place. The second half of the album, marked by the beat switch around 3 minutes into “Nights” marks a change in production style that lasts the rest of the album and culminates in the final song on the album “Futura Free”. He does not shy away from showing his chops when he deems necessary. This type of variation is standard for him on Blonde. “Solo” is an organ-backed drug-fuelled anthem to being by oneself on which Ocean almost raps the verses before a heady, soaring, and layered outro in which his vocal talents are on display. His masterful use of his voice lends both perspective and musical uniqueness to his work.
Working up the tracklist from “Nikes” one of the things that becomes increasingly evident is that Ocean’s attention to detail goes well beyond just the production and features. The song stands as a testament to Ocean’s ability to create cohesion in a song from thoughts that may not always be well put together. Ocean talks about A$AP Yams, Pimp C, and Trayvon Martin who all suffered untimely deaths for different reasons.
“Nikes” is a lush, high-pitched track with references to his life growing up, ideas about materialism, and perhaps the only political references on the album. Ocean starts his album with a meditative piece that is both eulogy and a collection of sparse thoughts. The array of producers and features Ocean enlisted on this project show exactly that. However, to say that Blonde sounds like an Eno record is a reduction.īlonde is the work of someone who spent a good deal of time thinking about how they wanted their record to sound. Ocean has, in great detail, listed his influences and inspirations for Blonde but the most frequent comparison he receives for Blonde is collaborator Brian Eno, a minimalist by anyone’s standards. Blonde is a marked deviation from the Soul-influenced style of Channel Orange.
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