79. Frank Ocean, "Blond"

 

Never has my personal take on an artist shifted so quickly.  You may remember that when we last saw Frank Ocean (#148, Channel Orange), I said "it just didn't do much for me."  Either I changed or this album represented a massive leap forward or something, because, reader, this is some incredible music.  It's way, way outside my usual wheelhouse and so it took me some time to warm up to and I feel like I still haven't absorbed it completely.  I'm going to keep returning to it because there is a lot here.

Trying to describe what kind of music this is would be like trying to ask a lake what kind of water it is.  But I'll say a few words anyway.  There are elements of dream pop and R&B and electro-pop and gospel and hip hop and soul and I don't, just everything.  This is an album that borrows a lyric from Elliott Smith ("fond farewell to a friend," in "Siegfried") and part of a Beatles melody ("Here, There, and Everywhere" on "White Ferrari," which we'll get to in a minute).  Ocean has specifically said that Brian Wilson was an inspiration, and I can see that, the way the songs are intricately woven, sounds dipping in and out.  It's mosty a quiet and thoughtful album, but bursting with ideas.

A few extra-bright spots for me.  "Solo," as the title implies, is about the many forms of aloneness and loneliness and also about smoking marijuana.  Singing over a church organ played by James Blake, Ocean constructs a complicated melody that resolves into a gorgeous chorus:

It's hell on Earth and the city's on fire
Inhale, in hell, there's heaven
There's a bull and a matador dueling in the sky
Inhale, in hell, there's heaven

You just have to hear it yourself.  A few songs later, there's "Solo (Reprise)," which consists almost entirely of an absolutely mind-bending rap by Andre 3000 over some piano.  "Ivy," one of the few guitar-based songs, is a mesmerizing piece of bedroom pop, about, as Ocean explained, "collage or bricolage, 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."

"White Ferrari," credited to Ocean, Kanye West, Malay Ho, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney, is, like so much of the album, about feelings of loneliness and isolation:

Bad luck to talk on these rides
Mind on the road, your dilated eyes watch the clouds float
White Ferrari, had a good time
(Sweet sixteen, how was I supposed to know anything?)
I let you out at Central
I didn't care to state the plain
Kept my mouth closed
We're both so familiar
White Ferrari, good times

Co-produced by Jon Brion, who keeps popping up, the song is typically quiet, almost narcotic, which you might need to absorb the feeling.  Same vein, there's "Godspeed," a sad wish to lover leaving.  There are obvious sacred music overtones, with an outro by gospel singer Kim Burrell.

The right time to listen to this album is at 4 am in the Hollywood Hills after everyone has left the party and there are empty bottles of Dom floating in the pool.  Or driving with all the windows open very fast through the Mojave Desert after your lover has dumped you in a text message.  Or in a hotel room in a city you don't know after you've left everything behind.

Is this album in my personal Top 500? It is now.