2/13/2023 0 Comments Frank ocean blonde album meaningThat’s less his way of hogging the spotlight, more proof of ‘Blonde’’s unpredictability and how split-seconds stay in the memory rather than specific songs. More airtime are given to a joke interview recorded by Frank’s brother when they were kids, on ‘Futura Free’. The former can be heard in the background of ‘Ivy’, while Kendrick is reserved to a couple of accentuations. Especially in 2016, when one opinion can be gospel while everything else is void, when you’re told to be aware of everything while barely anyone knows the reality.īig name cameos from the likes of Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar are so subtle, they’re barely audible. But there’s something refreshing in not having the answer. Each song is like a story with a dozen alternate endings. There are funny contradictions everywhere, like how an anti-drugs speech from Frank’s Auntie (‘Be Yourself’) is immediately followed by ‘Solo’’s opening line, “Hand me a towel I’m dirty dancing by myself / Gone off tabs of that acid.” Right up to the record’s title - it can be called ‘Blonde’ or ‘Blond’ - there’s no certainty. ‘Nights’ splits into two parts - from disjointed, N64-on-steroids playfulness to a twisted, after-hours purple haze. Andre 3000’s show-stopping ‘Solo (Reprise)’ verse gives way to ‘Pretty Sweet’’s white noise and a fitting Outkast-nodding beat frenzy. Instead, flooring split-seconds and sudden jolts of life step in out of nowhere. Strict song structures are scarce, save for the dazzling ‘Ivy’ and ‘Pink + White’. And it works because it’s so content with not knowing an absolute truth.įluid and curious, the record explores like there’s always something else to see. Its best moments play out like a lucid dream. In truth, the follow-up to ‘Channel Orange’ thrives in its own uncertainty. There’s bound to be something down there somewhere, but you’ve got to get past the infinite, beautiful distractions. Searching for ‘Blonde’’s true meaning is like fishing for treasure in the Great Barrier Reef. If a record is billed as being “open to interpretation’, that’s often code for “there’s not a great deal to see here, guys.” That’s not the case for Frank Ocean’s ‘Blonde’, an album that will be poked and prodded at by deep-thinking fans for years to come, and for good reason. When music and meaning don’t fully click together like a neat stack of Lego bricks, ambiguity steps in.
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