A Kind of Stream of Consciousness Technique is Utilized by Frank Ocean in Blonde
Frankly, I am not going to pretend that I understand the acclaim that Frank Ocean’s Blonde album has been getting. I have heard his work with other artists and have loved them (example, Beyonce’s “I Miss You” from her 4 album), but this is the first time I have heard his own work. I haven’t yet heard his first album Channel Orange so I actually don’t have any foundation or background to the music that he makes. I guess that’s why I was sonically shaken – if a term like that exists – when I listened to the Blonde album in its entirety. Ok, I have listened to ‘strange’ albums before or albums which are not made for the mainstream audience. Icelandic singer Bjork has many of those, Radiohead’s Kid A was also bizarre and some of Erykah Badu’s albums seem to go on and on. However, Frank Ocean takes it to another level as there is virtually no template that I can detect in the album – no chapters, no songs grouped together by theme. If this was writing fiction, this would be called ‘stream of consciousness’. Later, as I check the lyrics of the songs that I like in this album, I will see if indeed, some form of stream of consciousness has been used by Frank Ocean. There is no denying though that some parts of the album seem to be internal monologues. There are also parts where people are interviewed and they start talking about the most personal of things. I feel like I am a voyeur of this album – as I listen in to the thoughts of other people – their random thoughts on anything that comes up in the world created by Frank Ocean.