3 Hour long Blonded Episode up for tonight at 12am EST - HipHop

I was packing up the things for a day with my family at the beach. Everything to the sound of Endless, the visual album Frank Ocean had released a day before. I was so excited for whatever could come out of it. I checked my phone every five minutes, looking for whatever could happen. Once I had packed up, I sat for a few minutes on my couch and checked my phone again. There it was. [FRESH] Frank Ocean - Nikes. It wasn't a single, it was a video. As fast as I had ever done in my life, I plugged my earbuds in and opened Apple Music. It was such a experience, the visuals, the high pitched voice, the low voice, the final part, the fantastic lyrics. It was so different from the 90s R&B of Channel Orange and the future reggae of Endless, and I loved it. A few minutes later there were download links, and Nikes became the soundtrack for a perfect day, and it was the only thing I listened to that day: on the two hours car trip, out loud on the beach, when everyone was going to take a siesta, in the other two hours back, until I went to sleep.

Next day, I woke up around 6am because of some dogs barking to [FRESH] Frank Ocean - Blonde. Once again, I plugged my earbuds, opened Apple Music and started to listen in bed. Nikes had a few changes here and there, but everything else was new. The weird synths of Ivy. The orchestration of Pink + White. The crazy rap verse of Solo (Reprise). The guitar beat switch of Nights. The velvety feeling of White Ferrari. The gospel of Godspeed. I have to admit, I didn't like it as much as I would have liked to. It felt disjointed in many times: the bare production of Skyline To, the high pitch of Self Control, the craziness of Pretty Sweet, the constant short interludes, the… whatever of Seigfried and Futura Free. The word for it was disjointed. But I gave it a second chance. I downloaded it, dressed up and went outside to take a walk.

The world feels totally different in summer at 7am. I don't know where do you live, but I live outside a city. It's country here. Walking with Blonde playing felt like a completely different experience: the bareboned sound that some songs showed, like Seigfried, Skyline To or Self Control, stopped feeling disjointed. It felt like it belonged there. In nature. The same could go to other songs, like the nature of Pink + White.

But to the album. Blonde is a 180° turn from any other of Frank Ocean's work. It takes risks, and they pay off. One of them is the change of pitch achieved with the Prismizer, a software created by Francis and the Lights. It's used in the songs Nikes, Ivy, Self Control, Nights and Futura Free. What ties all these songs together is the theme: nostalgia. An old love in the case of the first four, and the past in Futura Free. The high pitch is overall used as a past voice. Frank himself confirmed it in an interview with NYT:

In places, like on "Ivy," he manipulated his voice to sound younger, to better capture the time he was evoking. Many of the new songs have two or three competing narratives — different points of view participating in the same story. "That was my version of collage or bricolage," he said. "How we experience memory sometimes, it's not linear. We're not telling the stories to ourselves, we know the story, we're just seeing it in flashes overlaid."

Because that's Frank Ocean's gift, the narrative. And using every resource available to make it better. And the pitch is used for it.

In Nights, it goes:

"1998 my family had that Acura
Oh, the Legend
Kept at least six discs in the changer
Back when Boswell and Percy had it active
Couple bishops in the city building mansions
All the reverends
Preaching self made millionaire status
When we could only eat at Shoney's on occasion
After 'trina hit I had to transfer campus
Your apartment out in Houston's where I waited
Stayin' with you when I didn't have a address
Fuckin' on you when I didn't own a mattress
Working on a way to make it outta Texas
Every night"

It's all pitched up. I could get into all the references there are in just a few verses, but I'm just going to point out how it all talks about the past, a past he won't be able to go back to now that he is famous.

"1998 my family had that Acura, oh, The Legend"

But now he has McLarens which apparently he barely drives.

"When we could only eat at Shoney's on occasion"

But now he eats in the most expensive restaurants, all around the world.

In short, Blonde uses the high pitch to create a feeling of nostalgia, younger times. Times that we won't go back to, but that we can evoke in a future.

Another achievement of Blonde is the ambient, cinematic sound. And talking about cinematic, Frank flew in the movie scores composer Christophe Chassol. This is what he had to say about him:

"The guy is smart. He's really smart. The way he works in the studio is really cool. He has a printer, he has a lot of pictures of architecture, contemporary art, a lot of pictures of different kinds of things. So we start to work on a track and he says, this track is this—that car that you can see. He makes me work on a song, and I'm like, 'oh this sounds like Pino Donaggio's score for 'Blow Out', by Brian Depalma. I start to work on a song and five minutes later on the pro-tools screen you have the movie, the score, stretched to fit the song—just to try. I've never worked with that much money in music. It's good sometimes to have money because you can try things."

What Frank wanted to achieve was a cinematic, atmospheric sound. Maybe it doesn't showcase as much in the first half, but in the second it's obvious: the back track of Facebook Story, the drums of Close To You, and the ambient pop of White Ferrari, Seigfried, Godspeed and Futura Free. In many of these cases, Frank's voice is barely backed by a lonely guitar, a piano or some synths, but sometimes less is more. Blonde isn't an album full of spectacular moments that shock through the music, there are very few on it. The beat switch in Nights. The amazing orchestration of Pink + White. The hard hit that Pretty Sweet is. You can count them with one hand.

Instead, Blonde relies on Frank's lyrical skills. All the songs show what's happening in the song, there is no need for a video. Instead, Frank released a magazine: Boys Don't Cry. BDC showcased the work of some photographers, such as Ren Hang or Viviane Sassen. The themes are many, from expensive cars to sexuality to Kanye West ordering at McDonalds, but they are shown in the album. BDC acts like a companion piece to Blonde, giving something to focus your attention on while listening to the album.

At the end of the day, Blonde is a movie without images. One that you can see through the lyrics: beautiful landscapes, moving pictures and a cinematic atmosphere. Usually a year is enough to make an album feel dated: one year later, does Lemonade stand as well without the videos? Does TLOP feels as fresh as it was? Or Coloring Book? Let's not even talk about Views. Frank took risks and they paid off. It's too soon to say it will be a classic, but everything seems to point at it. It already feels like a timeless album, one that we will talk about for years.

Some discussion points for the album:

How do you feel about the overall sound of the album?
What do you think about some of the skeletal production of the album?
What do you think about the use of high-pitched voices?
Do you think the lyrics are great? Any you love or would love to share?
Should Frank take this route, or the more pop infused one that his recent singles showed?

Thank you for reading.

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