And, there is definitely a lot more improvement needed. "Nikes" is one of my least favourite songs from Frank ever. The shoegazy guitar, And nostalgia of "Ivy", The heavenly romanticness of "Pink + White", The sparse yet beautiful "Solo", The gorgeous, And Indescribably beautiful, Outro of "Self Control", The Synth swirls and vibes of "Nights", The self destruction and chaos, And the child choir outro of "Pretty Sweet", The whole song and James Blakes' Outro of "White Ferrari", The Burst out strings and rappy outro of "Seigried", And the beautiful song that is "Godspeed", I love everything.īut, That isn't to say this is perfect. I just absolutely love this record, If you couldn't tell already. It's just absolutely beautiful and indescribable. The emotional value of the songwriting, Gets the justice, By these adorable vocals. It feels so present to me, and the vocals are stunningly emotive as well. It never feels too much, or less effort at any instant. His vocals always feel so 'just right' to me. Frank Ocean is one of my favorite Vocalists of all time. Now, With every grower aside, There's one thing that I've always loved about this album. I don't think "Pretty Sweet" would feel as chaotic and "Seigfried" As otherworldly, if it wasn't for the fact that the rest of the album keeps it from you. And the minimal approach also elevates the impact of the more extravagant parts of the project. While the minimalist approach here, does feel empty at fist, it creeps on you slowly, And the more it does, The more right and special it feels. It's minimalism works in interesting ways here. But, Blonde takes it to a whole new level. His instrumentals have always been a bit minimal, with not much instrumentation. Now, no matter how better Blonde is at minimalism, Frank has never been an outsider to it. The production achieves the deeper sense of 'Intimacy' through It's phenomenal use of Minimalism. And, I'm sure everybody had this thought at first, But the more I've soaked into this record, The more I feel like, This is the right sound. The production here felt lazy, for me at first. With the subject Matter Aside, Now let's talk about the production. And "Facebook Story" telling how Love doesn't need a digital medium, And the next track "Close To You" He requires a talkbox, An Artificial medium to sing 'I wanna be close to you'. Like how, "Be Yourself" tells not to get into drugs and the next track "Solo" talks about him already being addicted to it. Sometimes the conflict is shown in literal yet underneath ways. The more vibey, first couple tracks, Then Nights being the exact middle of the album, And everything after that being much more melancholic and self reflective, is executed really well.
The Album's presentation, is great as well. It always fascinates me, I can read the lyrics alone, and confidently say, That frank wrote it. Inhale, In hell, There's Heaven" Where he talks about his emotions arguing with his logic, as a metaphor, As he Inhales the weed, Which h refers to as 'hell' he gets high, and reaches the mindset of heaven. The songwriting runs like Poetry throughout, and the presentation of ideas as lyrics are one of the biggest advantages of the record.Ī Great example for that, would be the lyric "There's a Bull and a Matador, Dueling in the sky. And that's very reflective in it's cover as well. He even questions his identity from a lot of aspects. It's the conflict he faces on almost every topic and even the presentation of an album. The Album's subject matter is abstract, With Young Love, Heartbreak, Addiction, Sin and Most importantly "Identity". While, one of my complaints on the record at first, was how all over the place and scattered the themes, But as time has went on, I've come to appreciating how Abstract The tales here are. While, the first listens were too boring, The Album grows to be a Constant Companion and a musical Labyrinth, That would define Frank Ocean's Genius for years. But, Interestingly enough, This album would turn to being responsible for me waking up in the middle of the night and sobbing. The voice experimentation, The sparse or minimal and low-key production, felt like the album you would fall asleep to. The album and the songs felt like they were dragged, yet was way too samey and skeletal for listening. In Fact, My first listen of blonde was off-putting and boring, and I disliked the whole album. These are words that i never in a million years thought would come out of me, When I was first listening to this. Frank Ocean's Blonde is easily one of my personal favourite albums to exist, and one of the albums that drags me back into it in any state of mind.