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.

In 2010, despite being a newly signed Def Jam artist, Frank Ocean was a name relatively unknown to music fans. But behind the scenes, he had already been making some major moves. By then, he had written for Justin Bieber, John Legend and Brandy. The same year, he also started appearing on albums from MellowHype and Domo Genesis, both of them Odd Future acts. Naturally, their dedicated fan base started to take notice, but the true breakout year for Frank was 2011. Growing a little tedious of writing for artists rather than putting out his own music, he kicked off the year with his nostalgia, ULTRA mixtape. His Odd Future co-sign proved valuable and his fan base then was mostly comprised of theirs. The reception of the tape was overwhelmingly positive and it led him to work with Beyonce, JAY-Z and Kanye West, amongst others. Just like that, he was in LA, working with the stars, living the life of a star, and those debut album murmurs begun. He followed through to 2012, garnering attention and working on channel ORANGE all the while. Approximately a week before its July 10th release, Ocean took to his Tumblr account to post an open letter addressing his sexuality. In it, he reveals that his first true love was with a man. He thanked him for the influence on his life and spoke to his own emotion. “I feel like a free man” he wrote. His courage in publishing the letter was applauded by many and he included a copy of it with the physical version of channel ORANGE. Some of the music on the LP clearly addressed a man rather than a woman, resulting in huge cultural impact. Based on 46 reviews, Metacritic gives it an average score of 92/100, making it one of the most critically acclaimed albums of all time. He toured the album in 2013 and then announced that he’d started working on the sophomore. And so it began.