“How we experience memory sometimes, it’s not linear,” Ocean told The New York Times in one of his few interviews about the album. At its clearest points, he was howling over an organ ( Godspeed ) and at its stormiest it felt as if he was yelling from far away ( White Ferrari ). Ocean’s thoughts fired fast over gritty, misty soundscapes. They were hazy and they required multiple narratives. These weren’t straight forward situations. Ocean had the melodies but they needed more depth.
Casual Frank fans tuned out but those who stuck with it were rewarded raw, complicated record full of fragile, sincere love songs.īlonde was as complicated as it needed to be. The Wonder influences were still there were also tinges of The Beatles and The Beach Boys. Many of the full-length songs were devoid of a beat, introducing guitar into Frank’s repertoire more than ever before. Some songs were just over a minute long while there were also voice notes from his Mum and a bizarre narration by SebastiAn. The record felt like a sketchbook of ideas.
At first listen, Blonde sounded unfinished. The hooks were pop radio-ready and his voice was present, often sitting on top of the mix. It was groundbreaking but it was also immediately accessible.
He fused gentle, beat-driven love songs alongside autobiographical cuts with nods to Stevie Wonder. On Channel ORANGE, Frank had presented himself as R&B’s new wave. While there was mystery surrounding its release, the true confusion lay in the sound of the album. Then, a 17-track album dropped out of nowhere, preceded only by the woozy Nikes. We had watched him do woodwork for almost two weeks and attempted to decode a visual album. When Frank Ocean’s Blonde arrived two days after visual album Endless, there was some confusion.