FRANK OCEAN BLONDE ALBUM TRACLKLIST OFFLINE

Whereas Channel Orange showed off an expansive eclecticism, this album contracts at nearly every turn. On its surface, Blonde seems tremendously insular. The song is a woozy, faded, screwed-down odyssey, replete with helium warble and dewy third eye-and it’s actually one of the album’s most propulsive tracks. It’s also the most overtly political statement Frank makes across the entire record.

Even now, four years after the Florida teen was shot and killed with Skittles in his pocket, the line jolts. In the song’s video, Frank holds up a framed photo of the 17-year-old martyr, the boy’s sad eyes tucked inside a hoodie. “RIP Trayvon, that nigga look just like me,” he sings on “ Nikes,” the opening track from Blonde, his wary exhale of a new album. How his voice was allergic to nonsense, how it could shatter a heart into dust. How he allowed us to escape within his carefully drawn characters while never letting us off the hook. There was a yearning for his perspective-how he could soothe without losing sight of what’s important. The stoic empathy he beamed throughout Channel Orange was missed. Though he posted several elegant messages online, reacting to horrors in Ferguson and Orlando, his relative silence only grew louder as tensions outside continued to rise. How dare you just be excellent?” The Rock quote is from a 2012 profile of the reclusive D’Angelo, who felt compelled to release his first album in 14 years following the shooting of Michael Brown the moment spurred him on.įaced with a hellish loop of police brutality, other musical leaders like Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé came forth with brilliant righteousness as well. “You represent the race, and you have responsibilities that go beyond your art. “Black stardom is rough,” Chris Rock once said. There are precedents for this sort of thing, for disappearances, for the self-implosion of black genius. He could be the dynamic human of the future, exploding age-old binaries with an eloquent note, melting racial divisions with a devastating turn of phrase or quick flit to falsetto. Then he became the story-an avatar for all of our fluid modern ideals. After a delay in shipping the physical versions of Endless began to arrive with “Device Control” removed from the tracklisting.At first, Frank Ocean was simply a great storyteller. Physical versions of the album, CD, vinyl and VHS, were put on sale in 2017 on Cyber Monday, mirroring the sale of Blonde physicals the year before on Black Friday. The short film was released on Apple Music shortly thereafter. Frank completed the construction of the stairway, eventually climbing the staircase as he reached the top, the stream glitched and cut to black.

This was later revealed to be a spiral staircase which artist Tom Sachs, who helped facilitate the project, refers to as the “Stairway to Heaven.”Īfter more than a week of inactivity, the stream resurfaced an hour before midnight EST on August 19th, 2016.

FRANK OCEAN BLONDE ALBUM TRACLKLIST OFFLINE

The live stream, which alternated from live to offline over the course of 19 days, featured a focused Frank Ocean who appeared to be constructing something. The visual album fulfilled Frank’s record deal with label Def Jam Recordings, allowing him to release Blonde under his own label, Boys Don’t Cry, a day after Endless.Įndless originally began as a live stream on Frank’s official website, on August 1st, 2016. Endless was a short film released by Frank Ocean on August 19th, 2016, shortly followed by his long-awaited second studio album Blonde.

Frank ocean blonde album traclklist