Blonde - Frank Ocean (2016) [WORK IN PROGRESS]

So, what is so magical about Blonde that despite being out for 10 years, people are already calling it a classic? For one, I think that when looked side-by-side with Channel ORANGE, the themes, soundscapes, and feelings of both albums complement each other quite well.

I have always thought of Channel ORANGE to be the “happier” album of the two, as it reminds me of what I think life felt like during middle and high school: Complicated in its own - inconsequential - away, but ultimately driven by the simplicity and carelessness of being young, something the songs throughout this album perfectly resemble. Thinkin Bout You’s metaphor of a first love making you feel disoriented as if a tornado had torn your room into pieces, Lost” itself talking about how easily one can get lost in the trill of life, and Super Rich Kids depicting the wasteful tendencies of teenagers. To a certain degree the album romanticizes love and all the other addictions it engages with in a way that makes them sound cool and harmless.

Yet, despite tackling similar themes (especially that of love) Blonde has an infinetly more sobering tone to it. Frank’s plead in Self Control to his former lover to “Keep a space” for him in the bed so that he can sleep between his lover and their new partner shows us that perhaps that romance that flipped our world upside down in Thinkin Bout You didn’t work out. White Ferrari’s battle with the lack of permanence in life, love, and the universe at large show us that perhaps time should be more consciously spent instead of wasting away like the super rich kids. Most importantly, the last song of the album Futura Free, reminds us that while life may have seen simpler, happier, or just overall better at some point in the past, it is the growth from the past to the present that makes us the people we are today. As Frank celebrates the fact that he’s “makin’ 400, 600, 800K” to stand on his feet and that he hasn’t had a job since 2009, he also reflects on the lack of real friends that fame has brought “Remember when I had that Lexus? No. Our friendship don’t go back that far. Tyler slept on my sofa, our friendship go back that far”.

But more than the lyrics themselves, I think that what makes this - and by extension any album - so great is what was happenning in your personal life when you listened to these albums. While I first listened to Channel ORANGE and Blonde before and after breaking up with my high school girlfriend (couldn’t be any more cliche), I have since listened to both albums multiple times, in the span of which I graduated from high school, took a gap year to travel the world, started my undergraduate degree, got my first job, started dating my girlfriend, and now began my first job; and so naturally, the albums evolved from simply being about love and happiness and heartbreak and sadness to the shifting nature of relationships and how we tend to perceive them as time goes by. In particular, as I have relistened to both albums in the last couple years, Channel ORANGE and Blonde have come to symbolize my relationship with my sister.