USA TODAY International Edition
Frank Ocean adds needed color with second new album, ‘ Blonde’
It was an agonizing four- year wait for more Frank Ocean.
So when the reclusive crooner finally returned with new material this weekend, fans were ecstatic to receive not one, but two albums: the sprawling, subdued visual effort Endless, released on Apple Music late Thursday night, and the more traditional Blonde ( or Blond, depending on whether you choose to use the cover art or iTunes spelling).
Blonde opens with spellbinding first single Nikes, whose eccentrically grandiose video Ocean released Saturday morning. Addressing matters of class, materialism and passion through dreamy, distorted vocals, the song has the trademark vulnerability of Ocean’s Channel Orange and
Nostalgia, Ultra, while also moving him into more sonically adventurous territory.
Nikes is easily an album stand- out and offers a perfect tease of what’s to come on the rest of
Blonde, another poetic, diary- like entry to Ocean’s already- peerless catalog. His third studio effort is streaming exclusively on Apple Music now, but was also made available in physical form at a series of pop- up shops nationwide Saturday, where the album’s companion magazine revealed A- list credits including Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and André 3000.
While we’ll surely be unpacking Blonde’s 17 tracks for weeks to come, here are five that caught our ears on first listen:
PINK + WHITE
Beyoncé, is that you? The Lemonade queen — who recruited Ocean for her own Superpower in 2013 — can faintly be heard in the background of this heavenly, piano- driven ballad, whose breezy melodies and wistful lyrics make it the quintessential track for driving with the windows down as summer draws to a close.
SOLO
Dulcet vocals and a pipe organ are the bare bones of this mellow stoner anthem, which gets a memorable reprise midway through from Ocean’s Pink Matter collaborator André 3000. Nearly walking away with the album in just under a minute and a half, the Outkast rapper dexterously puts other artists on blast, spitting, “I’m so naive, I was under the impression that everyone wrote they own verses.”
NIGHTS
Slurring his raps over a chiming, surf- rock guitar line, Ocean is seemingly unflappable as he raps about blue- collar struggles, driven by the promise of “new beginnings” and “marijuana, that’s a cheap vacation.” But darkness sets in during the song’s slower, more despondent R& B finish, in which he broods that “every night ( ruins) every day.”
WHITE FERRARI
Wondering why The Beatles are mentioned in Blonde’s starstudded credits? It’s because Ocean references the Fab Four’s Here, There and Everywhere in this soulful, slow- burning ballad. The influence of both Bon Iver and James Blake, who are featured, becomes obvious in the song’s stunning second half, marked by pitched- up vocals and vivid imagery about a past lover.
SEIGFRIED
If you’re not already in tears by this point, the aching one- two punch of Seigfried and Godspeed should do you in at the album’s climax. Seigfried is a particular triumph, as Ocean evokes the mythical Nordic warrior of the same name ( although different spelling). Over a rush of sweeping strings and warbling keyboard, Ocean bemoans how he’s “not brave” and can’t relate to others, before mulling the possibility of settling down with the one he loves.