After a four-year wait, Blond is here, and has been all the buzz. After the release of Channel Orange, Frank Ocean teased his fans with hints of a new album coming their way. With only 17 songs and one single, Nikes, Ocean doesn’t play his music for the radio. With Ocean dodging the press, and also deleting his Twitter account, no one would have guessed he’d break his silence.
I’ve never been a Frank Ocean fan, but I can’t lie when I say that when Thinking About You would come on, I would belt out every word. With little to no knowledge about this artist, I didn’t know what to expect when I plugged in my headphones to listen to his new album. After countless replays, I couldn’t find myself enjoying anything about it.
Blond only has 17 tracks, and five of the songs don’t even meet the two-minute mark. You can’t even call them songs, since Be Yourself, Good Guy, Solo (Reprise), Facebook Story, and Close to You are literally just people talking. To me, it isn’t worth the $1.29 on iTunes.
Knowing nothing about Ocean besides one song, I didn’t know what to expect from this. Would it be a pumped up or a mellowed out album? After about three songs, it didn’t take much for me to realize that this album was an absolute snooze fest. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but the only thing this album is good for is to fall asleep to. If someone gave me the aux in the car, Blond is the last thing I would think about playing.
Musically, Blond is an album with little to no drums, making it very soft. The chorus just slowly fades into other parts of the song, making it almost unnoticeable. With only one single, Nike, I expected it to stand out from the rest. In the single, Ocean mentions the lost lives of A$AP Yams, Pimp C, and Trayvon Martin. “Pour up for A$AP, Rip Pimp C, Rip Trayvon, that n**** look just like me.” Other than honoring those lives, Ocean also makes constant critiques to all the materialistic things in life that most would praise. He refers back to Nike shoes, glitter and gold, and fantasies of pleasure.
Nike really didn’t bring anything special to the table. Just like any other song in this album, it was slow and boring. Also, whatever little alien guy is singing this song doesn’t make it any better with how whiny and annoying he sounds. If you’re trying to kick back and fall asleep, then this album is 10/10, but for anything else, just hit skip.
