Sonic and Conceptual Analysis of Frank Ocean’s Blonde PDF

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Analysis of Frank Ocean’s Blonde’s tracklist, album art and underlying societal issues....

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Frank Ocean’s Blonde: a story Exhibit A: ‘the analysis of blonde’ Context: After fans thought Frank Ocean could not produce a project better than his 2012 debut album; Channel Orange, he had led his fans to believe that something amazing was on the way. After all, he had naturally been an elusive figure who was now posting and teasing his work on Tumblr. He made his name by confounding expectations and disobeying prevailing rules of genre and sexuality, so it would be incorrect if I said people expected the norm from Blonde. Throughout this informative piece, I will explore the backstory behind this critically acclaimed album, including Frank Ocean’s influences and motives, then analyse each track off the album whilst explaining the underlying themes of each track with evidence.

Influences It’s no surprise that Frank was influenced by a massive range of artists beyond just R&B, hiphop, jazz, blues and pop. These include Irish singer-songwriter Enya, Nirvana, D’Angelo, Pino Paladino, Questlove, Raphael Saadiq and more. In my opinion, Frank Ocean’s largest influence is that of Prince. This stems from his mannerisms, his boldness to blend multiple genres, to not be afraid of opinion and to convey emotion. Another influence includes that of the Neptunes, a production duo consisting of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo. Their neo-classical and experimental influence can be heard everywhere on Blonde, from blunt kicks, surprising effects and vocal layering. Blonde is the result of absolute creativity, sonic advancement and unprecedented innovation, but there’s so much more to the 2016 masterpiece than that. Blond consists of 17 songs and duration is exactly one hour. Below, I will outline the main songs in Blonde that convey these themes present the most.

Nikes The song Nikes makes obvious connections to fashion. It is a critique of the trappings of materialistic hedonism, with frequent reference to Nike sneakers, shiny gold/glitter, and fantasies of pleasure. Through “These bitches want Nikes They looking for a check Tell 'em it ain't likely” Frank uses Nike’s famous “swoosh” logo as a metaphor for money. His groupies usually have the same objective: start a relationship with him so they can take advantage of his wealth and get their check. Another theme that is brought up in 2qthis track is that of meaningless relationships. Through “I may be younger, but I'll look after you We're not in love, but I'll make love to you When you're not here, I'll save some for you I'm not him, but I'll mean something to you”, Frank uses juxtaposition to describe his relationship with this person. The second contradiction is their ‘making love.’ Although the two are having sex, they aren’t in love. The use of the phrase is usually used to show a deeper connection than just a physical one.

Ivy On Ivy, Frank Ocean reflects on his mistakes and explores a failed relationship. Him and his partner seem to have grown apart. He was overwhelmed when his partner told him that they loved him. In hindsight, the relationship was “the start of nothing” because they eventually separated. Ocean does, however, affirm the idea that the relationship was worthwhile and a memory to keep. In this reflective line, the words “I thought that I was dreamin' when you said you love me The start of nothin' I had no chance to prepare, I couldn't see you comin' The start of nothin'” point to the relationship being doomed from the start –

although he was blissfully unaware at the beginning. Overtime, both parties ended up hurting each other and as a result, Frank believes he can hate them for changing the good friendship that they once had into something he wasn’t ready for. Frank and the person he’s singing about have grown up and grew apart.

Pink + White Pink + White embodies Frank’s youth and someone close to him. The theme of mortality plays a key role in this song. He sings about a hurricane destroying everything in its path and its aftermath. The hurricane is likely a reference to Hurricane Katrina, which hit Louisiana while Ocean was a student at the University of New Orleans. In “Just the same way you showed me, showed me You showed me love Glory from above Regard, my dear It's all downhill from here” Frank’s reached a high, but this is the pinnacle of their relationship — the pair can only go downhill. He recalls the situations in the verse where his lover showed him how to embrace things that weren’t controllable. Frank extrapolates this to include their relationship’s end.

Solo On “Solo,” Frank touches on various aspects of being alone, such as self-love or waiting for a call from your lover. The song’s title has two interpretations. Throughout the song, Frank sings about how he is alone, or solo, but through the chorus Frank explains that he’s “so low” emotionally and that he needs to “get high.” Through “It's hell on Earth and the city's on fire Inhale, in hell, there's heaven”, Frank is commenting on the current tumultuous and chaotic state of the world. When he smokes, he reaches “heaven,” a happier place that is free of everyday problems.

Self Control Self Control is a slow ballad where Frank describes a relationship that is slowly falling apart. Throughout the song, Frank hints the reason their relationship crumbled was because the other person was too immature. A lovesick Ocean’s got that summertime sadness, consumed by the sticky-sweet regret of a love that never had a fair shake. “Wish I was there, wish we'd grown up on the same advice And our time was right”. This refers to common reasons for the dissolution of relationships: bad timing, lack of effort, and opposing worldviews. Continuing to contrast maturity levels, Frank expresses disappointment that they did not grow up with similar ideologies. Their relationship did not work out because of their different backgrounds and how it shaped them. In “Keep a place for me, for me I'll sleep between y'all, it's nothing It's nothing, it's nothing Keep a place for me, for me”, Frank is asking his past lover to remember him and their relationship, even during nights with a new person. The frequent repetition of “it’s nothing” shows that he’s trying to seem nonchalant, when in reality things aren’t that simple. Even though Frank acknowledges this relationship is a no-go, he loves them regardless and desperately wants to maintain a place in this person’s heart.

Good Guy Good Guy touches on ideas of loneliness and emptiness experienced from fruitless encounters. The track outlines a story of Frank going out on a blind date with a guy who he met through a mutual friend. On the date, Frank discovers his partner’s libertine character and realizes the intimacy shared between them is meaningless, when Frank was likely hoping for something more. Ocean’s vocals are accompanied only by a piano; the rawness of the track allows Frank’s emotions to stand front and center. These themes are evident in “I, here's to the highlights when I was convinced That this was much more to you than some some night shit I know you don't need me right now And to you, it's just a late night out”. This is the turning point in the date for Frank as he realizes that this man is different than he expected. It comes off

as poignant as Frank seems disillusioned about this person after meeting him, and he realizes the date is likely not the start of a great love affair but just another typical night.

Nights “Nights” starts with the story of one of Ocean’s previous relationships, detailing the highs and lows they both faced while dating. The song’s title is taken from the hook, in which Ocean raps about living a life connected by rough nights. The song’s structure is divided into two sides; the first part provides an upbeat, instrumental-driven melody. In the second half, the music turns somber and slow, serving as a parallel to a crash after a drug high. The change in tempo is used to signify the halfway point of the album, playing further into the idea of duality established throughout the album. In “My everyday shit, every night shit, every day shit (Every night shit, night shit, night shit, night shit)”, another social commentary on the monotony of life, Frank is talking about how the majority of people stick tightly to a schedule of working, sleeping, and doing it all over again until they die, not really happy, but at least they had food.

White Ferrari The car on “White Ferrari” symbolizes the purity and innocence of a relationship that are now remembered as being merely a “good time.” The sincerity of their love is represented by the Ferrari which is something that is both rare, desirable, extremely valuable, and precious. “White Ferrari” seems to tell the story of love, possibly a first love, and that feeling of confronting one’s adolescent emotions, relatable at any age. It also touches on contradicting ideologies within a relationship but gracefully acknowledges that despite differences or barriers, there is still a beautiful freedom of choice in any relationship. In the line “I'm sure we're taller in another dimension You say we're small and not worth the mention”, Ocean plays on the word dimension. He uses it in the sense of something that can be measured, in this case, height. He also refers to dimensions in the spatial sense. He tells his lover that at another time, in another place, their love would be more substantial and concrete.

Siegfried Seigfried could be described as a metaphysical break-up song. Frank begins by addressing a lover in a failed romance and goes to reflect on his own life. His reflections become increasingly more penetrating, moving from wondering about life choices to thoughts about the nature of his own mind and God. Through, “Been living in an idea An idea from another man's mind”, Frank is living in a society or idea created by another man. This fuels his internal conflict causing him to question where he should be and what he should be doing. Frank is possibly alluding the pressure celebrities face of following the “status quo.” This could also be a subliminal reference/criticism of traditional religious doctrines that were written in the patriarchal era of history and are largely viewed as the “proper” standards of morality today. Furthermore, in “Eat some shrooms, maybe have a good cry about you See some colors, light hang glide off the moon”, Frank mentions shrooms, one of the more common psychedelic drugs. They’re known to send people on mind-bending trips and evoke strong emotion, hence Frank taking some to escape the sadness about his failed relationship, or maybe have a therapeutic cry about it.

Futura Free Futura Free is about having the freedom to move forward and a celebration of Frank’s newfound independence.The song is divided into two sections, broken by a silent interlude. The first finds Frank reflecting on his life and accomplishments in a stream of consciousness style. He rambles about fame, religion, and sexuality while referencing popular icons who died at a young age such as 2Pac. Through

“I'm going rapidly, fading drastically (Keep me high, Castrati) Damn (Punani fade the stress) Or pull the zip down”, like in “Seigfried,” Frank is talking about his mortality. He realises his life is threatened by his fame and the zip being pulled down probably refers to a body bag. Frank has already recognised he’s not a God, but he realises he doesn’t want to die either since he’s come so far from earning $7 an hour.

Significance The album's themes surround Ocean dealing with his masculinity and emotions, inspired by sexual experiences, heartbreak, loss and trauma. Blonde received widespread acclaim, with critics praising Ocean's introspective lyrics and the album's unconventional and progressive sounds. For the themes discussed above, and how they were so well executed in each and every track, Blonde will forever be identified as a classic. Not only is this album creative, but it’s one of those rare albums that captures the exact feeling of a moment and preserves it in amber while setting the precedent for others to follow.

Exhibit B: ‘blonde and visuals’ Introduction “Sound is touch at a distance,” says Anne Fernald, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. In the way that human touch can be catalogued emotionally in our brains, the same happens with hearing. Emotions are closely linked to perception and very often our emotional response really helps us deal with reality. For example, a fear response helps you escape potentially dangerous situations and react quickly. But there are also situations where things can go wrong in the way fear response develops. Sounds and emotions are linked in a fundamental way. Hearing is a crucial part of our process of gathering and storing information for our safety and survival, as well as informing and enriching our emotional experiences as we make our way through the world. Furthermore, art forms give humans a higher satisfaction in emotional release than simply managing emotions on their own. Art allows people to have a cathartic release of pent-up emotions either by creating work or by witnessing and pseudo-experiencing what they see in front of them. Cognitive science proposes that art moves the viewer by evoking emotional cues we as humans have learned to understand over the millennium. Art exploits and explains our feelings. When paired, these two senses can give humans a wide emotional response.

Anime and Music Culture Watch: BlondeAMV.avi Anime music videos or AMVs are a transformative art form usually produced by combining video footage from Japanese animation with music. They are made to promote, inform or entertain the audience and often are sources from anime’s such as Naruto, Dragon Ball Z, InuYasha, Final Fantasy 7 (VII): Advent Children[7], Fullmetal Alchemist, Bleach, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Sailor Moon. They are quite popular and shared frequently on social media such as YouTube, Instagram and Tiktok.

Blonde as an AMV For the purpose to evoke an emotional response from specific songs on Blonde even more, I have decided to incorporate them into an Anime Music Video. The main feature of my anime music video for Blonde are outlined below;

1. I have included the songs Siegfried, Pink + White, Nights, Nikes, Skyline To, Be Yourself and Pretty Sweet. Rather than mixing them blandly, I have added crossfade and mixed the songs specifically so that they flow onto each other well. 2. I have used anime that captures the emotions of the music simultaneously to the best of its ability so that the audience feels connected with the piece. a. Siegfried uses a sad type of anime to overlay it, because the emotions let out by the song resembles something of the sort. b. Pink + White has a more upbeat and hopeful anime connected, because the emotion evoked by the song resembles that. c. Nights has a dark and psychedelic anime overlayed, due to the nature of the emotions evoked by the song. d. Nikes also has a happy yet doubtful anime. That is because the song gives off this impression. e. Skyline To gives off a similar feeling. It is happy yet mysterious. f. Be Yourself has a serious impression, and so the anime presented is also much more serious. g. Pretty Sweet has the impression of urgency and forward running. That's why the anime presented resembles a race.

Exhibit C: ‘an album cover’

The album’s cover features a title in bold vintage font, a picture of Frank Ocean, a barcode and the parental advisory sticker all placed on an off white textured background. The simplistic layout seems very deliberate, a theme that he has used on many of his releases including Nostalgia, Ultra and Channel Orange.

Title The title font is actually the very common Futura SH Bold with the tops of some of the letters shaved to make curves. The custom edit to the font embodies a spacey and retro tone to match the atmospheric sounds on the album. In French, blond is masculine and blonde is feminine. This technique conveys Frank's sexual experiences with both men and women and the themes of duality between masculinity and femininity in his life.

Portrait There are details in the composition of the central picture that tells a deeper story that corresponds to the themes of the album. The picture on the cover was taken by Wolfgang Tillmans, a very famous contemporary photographer. Wolfgang's photographs vary from still life to portraits and a lot of his pictures deal with variety, death and, probably most important for Frank, sexuality. Frank is positioned away from the camera, with his hand covering his face, a seemingly candid pose. The light illuminating Frank’s left side paints the photograph with harsh shadows, revealing the apparent darkness of the space he is in. Uniform white tiles form the backdrop reminiscent of bathroom or shower walls, a reflective and private space for some people. The light juxtaposed with the darker environment brings out a fuller range of colors, and there are noticeable more subtle features of Frank’s upper body, such as the water droplets and his chest tattoo. As the light interrupts the predominantly dark atmosphere, the sense that Frank is being interrupted is introduced. Whether the hand in front of his face is an initial reaction to the bright light or an unwelcome photograph, this portion of the piece gives us the sense that we are bursting in on an intimate moment. His hand covering his face may be an initial reaction to bright lights or it could be an unwelcome photograph. With either possibility, this portion of the album cover creates the sense that the audience is interrupting or intruding on an intimate moment. These aspects portray Frank, a usually quiet figure away from mainstream media, convey a visual of himself being disturbed to pair with an album of atmospheric, self reflective ballads. The Blonde cover represents how we feel so close to Frank through his music, yet he doesn't look us in the eye. There's no real connection being made explicitly and despite that we all have fond and profound connections to his music and the cover itself even. I think the cover gives us a chance to be where we would never be allowed. It lets us near but keeps the soul of the eyes from us.

Conclusion These elements of the Blonde album cover represents the themes of the album perfectly. It is simple, has meaning and is timeless. The cover is just another aspect of the album that fits perfectly with everything else and as a result, solidifies the album’s greatness.

Exhibit D: ‘society at large’ Frank Ocean has made a deeply empathetic and passionate album that's partly about his own ongoing struggle with masculinity and emotionalism. Quilted from fragmented ideas, observations and submerged memories around the vicissitudes of heartbreak and loss, he manages to process his relation to that personal trauma for us in the most intimate and fragile of ways. Blonde is similar to other extremely

meaningful albums such as To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar and We’re All Alone in This Together by Dave. They all wade deeply, and even self-consciously, into impressionistic emotionalism and into gospel-influenced questions of existence. And they offer us existential musings at a crucial time, especially in a time where being queer and black has seen so much backlash.

Masculinity In the Post World War II era, there were well defined separate roles for man and woman in society. The husband was the bread-winner, earning money for the family, whilst his wife would take care of domestic duties. Patriarchy ensured that men were considered more important and powerful than women. Consumerism was not as important as it is today, with employment being the main source of identity. Jobs were for life, which created security, with the knowledge that once a trade was learnt, a new one will not be required. Manufacturing was a dominant employer, with the government also offering many jobs through civil service and nationalised industries. However, as men went to fight the war, women were recruited into employment which before was inaccessible to them. After the war, women wanted the choice ...