Frank Ocean’s second official album, Blonde, released in 2016, is a wonderfully heartbreaking yet nostalgic experience beginning to end. Ocean has been praised for his unique take on R&B, as he uses music to beautifully express the feelings many can resonate with. This album takes you through the journey and feelings of love, loss, personal discoveries, and growing older while facing new life experiences. The album is overall, a positive experience that I would highly recommend.
Frank Ocean will often sing from his own perspective about past and current romantic, platonic, and family relationships. These relationships can also make Ocean question his own self-worth and make him wonder if the feelings he and his partner felt in the relationship were genuine. This can be seen in multiple tracks throughout the album. For example, in Ivy, he says, “If I could see through walls I could see you faking” along with “broke your heart last week, you’ll probably feel better by the weekend.” This may imply that he feels he was never truly cared for in a deep way as well as being irrelevant in his ex-partner’s life. “I care for you still and I will forever.” This lyric from white ferrari represents how even when you’re moving on from someone, you can still hold them deeply in your heart.
The fact that he sings from his own perspective makes the music even more relatable due to how it allows you to connect it to yourself and feel as if you’re living the story being told.
In the fourth track of the album titled Be Yourself a voicemail is played, which came from his friend’s mom. In this voicemail, the mother speaks on staying true to yourself and not being influenced or pressured into doing things like drugs and alcohol. Hearing the next few songs after this interlude are a bit more impactful because of the message the mom was trying to convey and some of the lyrics in the music. For example, solo, which is the track directly after the interlude, Ocean sings “hand me a towel, I’m dirty dancing by myself, gone off the tabs of acid.” This contradicts what the voicemail was saying to do, while also showing that even though he was warned, he couldn’t help but fall into those bad habits during his worst moments.
The ninth track Nights serves as a transitional point in the album. This transition takes place exactly halfway into the album and the music switches into a deeper, more emotional and masculine tone. This is thought to be the switch between blonde and Blond. Blonde represents the more feminine side of Ocean while blond represents the masculine parts of him, this switch shows the 2 halves of himself.
The album explores drug abuse and how some may use it as a coping method. It’s often referenced when he sings about his lowest moments. In Solo a line reads “ inhale, in hell” which shows how he uses smoking as a coping mechanism due to his painful emotions.”Noses on the rail” a line from Self Control, a song about heartbreak, makes this reference to cocaine. Drugs are brought up throughout the album to show him dealing with his lowest moments not because it’s something Ocean enjoys.
The story flowed well and started off with a more nostalgic feeling going through the phases of different emotions and later switched over smoothly using instrumentals to help convey the transition into songs that are a bit more melancholic and deep. The use of instrumentals is really good and helps shift the dynamic and mood of the album/song. The lyrics are very well written and the way they are sung helps to push a certain feeling when listening to the music. The lyrics, instrumentals, and melody all help to create a well thought out powerful album all around.
I believe the album was an excellent listening experience. It’s something I could find myself enjoying on an emotional level and when I’m just looking for something to chill out to. It is one of my favorite albums and was very enjoyable. I would recommend this album to those who like listening to music they can relate to and also people who like emotional and softer music and listen to artists like Daniel Cesar. I wouldn’t recommend it to people who like super harsh or upbeat music and lyrics. This album is a good experience and helps convey strong and powerful emotions. Overall I would highly recommend giving this album a try.
