It has been over four years since Frank Ocean dropped his first album, “Channel Orange,” and the wait for his second album is finally over. The R&B singer/songwriter first dropped a visual album entitled “Endless” on Aug. 19, exclusive to Apple Music, and followed that up with the full album, “Blonde,” — which was originally going to be called “Boys Don’t Cry” — the very next day. Blonde has already received numerous good reviews, and five songs from the album debuted on the Hot 100, with “Nikes” leading the way at No. 79.
Just like he did in “Channel Orange,” Ocean once again showed off his musical range and hard-hitting lyrics. From upbeat tunes like “Solo” and “Nights” to slower pieces such as “Self Control” and “Nikes,” Ocean offers a good variety of musical styles that appeal to multiple audiences.
Pretty much as soon as the album dropped, “Nikes” emerged as the most popular song. However, “Ivy” isn’t far behind, and is possibly the best song Ocean has ever published next to “Thinkin Bout You.”
Don’t get me wrong, “Nikes” is still a great song with catchy beat and wonderful lyrics that include shout outs to Trayvon Martin (“R.I.P. Trayvon”) and Carmelo Anthony (“need a ring like Carmelo”), but I’m simply not a fan of the amount of auto-tune he used in his vocals. Ocean’s voice is smooth enough to where he could’ve made it sound less nasally, or as some have joked, he could have made it sound less like he sung through the bee filter from Snapchat.
The brilliant, rangy and more natural vocals in “Ivy” make it better than “Nikes.” Ocean goes from note to note with perfection and has strong supporting instrumentals to go along with deep lyrics, including one of the best lines from the whole album, “If I could see through walls I would see you’re faking. If you could see my thoughts you would see our faces.”
While “Ivy” is probably the best track, “Self Control” might be my favorite. It is a slower track that appeals to people’s sensitive sides and has strong vocal support in featured artists Austin Feinstein and Yung Lean.
Speaking of featured artists, the best on the album was hands down Andre 3000 in “Solo (Reprise).” He absolutely kills his verse, which is easily the quickest-paced part of the album, and it might be his best performance since “Hey Ya” back in 2003 with Outkast.
Some have argued that the song-to-song cohesiveness in “Blonde” isn’t as good as it was in that “Channel Orange,” which may be true, but it certainly isn’t bad. Ocean lined up the tracks well enough to match the fluctuating moods of each piece and included a couple of segue pieces of people just talking, including “Be Yourself,” in which a mother tells her kid not to do drugs or conform to social norms, and “Facebook Story,” a more humorous piece about how a man’s girlfriend broke up with him because he wouldn’t accept her Facebook request.
Ocean kept his fans waiting for over four years to drop an album, but overall, most would agree that it was well worth the wait. Ocean hit this out of the park and should be able to keep his fans happy for a while. The album is available on iTunes and Apple Music.
