Blonde - Frank Ocean’s Latest Album After 4 years of previously unannounced, unreleased music, Frank Ocean finally returns with Blonde, a 17-track album that was dropped just days ago. In typical Frank Ocean manner, he did not release the album in the way fans hoped – in fact; he did not release it at all, at first.
Ocean had teased a release date for supposed album Boys Don’t Cry for more than a year prior to Blonde, and failing to deliver each time. Or, whether it was “failing” or “elaborately planning” the multiple hesitations and subsequent retreats before dropping the album still remains to be known, furthermore his reasoning behind not doing so.But as Ocean teases, “Thank you all. Especially those of you who never let me forget I had to finish. Which is basically every one of ya’ll.” While it does not seem that he delayed the release of new music to spite his fans, he was taking the time to form and perfect what he and the rest of the world knew was a highly-anticipated album. So while we may never know his reasoning for delaying his album release further and further, what we do finally have is new music!
Before Blonde was released, Ocean ever so quietly released a visual album via livestream on his website, titled Endless. Immediately following, pop-up shops appeared all over North America to release a collaborative zine, titled Boys Don’t Cry, consisting of various photographs, works of art, and poems written by Ocean himself and, specifically, one written about McDonalds by Kanye West. So, yes, while all this was so great to receive, fans asked are this really the album, Frank? No, it wasn’t, and there was still more to come. As part of an Apple Music exclusive release, Ocean released Blonde shortly after, an impressive 17-track record featuring collaborations with major artists such as Beyoncé on “Pink and White.” But the shine of Ocean’s work is not dulled by such huge artists’ contributions; rather they serve to enhance aspects of his own art. The album immediately does not seem to adhere to gender norms, as seen initially in the spelling of the album, both as Blondand Blonde, depending on where one acquires the album, apparently. Additionally, Ocean does not adhere to the music industry’s standards of songs falling in the 3-minute range, formulated as hits for the radio, traditionally. Instead, most of the songs in the 17-song track list fall under the 2-minute range or over the 5-minute range, the final track titled “Futura Free” reaching almost 9-and-a-half minutes. Such as he has done in the past, Ocean addresses topics such as love and sexuality. This time around, with Blonde, he addresses these topics more head-on, rather than dancing around the topic more back in 2012 with Channel Orange. This is evident in tracks such as “Self Control,” singing “I’ll be the boyfriend in your wet dreams tonight” and “Nights,” singing “All my night, been ready for you all my night” for example. Ocean also opens himself up to vulnerability in his lyrics, such as in “Solo” where he addresses how he is alone in singing “I think we were better off solo.” With Frank Ocean’s beautifully composed, epic 17-song album, the world is taking it all in at once. The next question to ask is where will he go from here? Will there be a tour for the record? Will Endless be incorporated if there is? Your move, Frank.