Frank Ocean part 2

This entry was originally scheduled to be published tomorrow. However, since the songs from Ocean's latest album, Blond, may disappear from youTube at any moment, I thought that you deserve the opportunity to listen to them today. Just be aware that this counts as tomorrow's entry: the next one will come the day after tomorrow. I have a life, you know...  :)

Frank's coming out did not hurt his album's commercial prospects: Channel Orange debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 and sold 131,000 copies in its first week. It received widespread critical acclaim and was named the best album of 2012 by numerous publications. By September 2014, the album had sold 621,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

In this album he collaborated with a lot of well known artists, such as Pharrell Williams, John Mayer, André 3000 and Tyler, The Creator. At the end of 2012, Channel Orange was named the year's best album by numerous publications, including the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, The Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, Now, Paste, PopMatters, Slant Magazine, Spin, and The Washington Post. It was named "Album of the Year" in HMV's Poll of Polls, an annual survey of British journalists from national print and online publications. It was also voted the best album of 2012 in the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics published by The Village Voice. In an essay for the poll, the newspaper's Eric Sundermann deemed the victory unsurprising as Ocean "dominated most music discussions this past year" and had an equalizing effect on listeners of all music genres. Metacritic cited it as both the "top-ranked" and "best-reviewed major album" of 2012, as well as "one of the best-reviewed albums of the past decade". Channel Orange won the Album of the Year award at the 2012 Soul Train Music Awards, and earned Ocean nominations for the 2013 Grammy Awards in the categories of Album of the Year, Best New Artist, and Record of the Year (for Thinkin Bout You), winning for Best Urban Contemporary Album. Ocean agreed to perform at the awards show only if they let him play the song he wanted, Forrest Gump.

Here are some of Forrest Gump's gay-themed lyrics:

I know you Forrest

I know you wouldn't hurt a beetle

But you're so buff, and so strong

I'm nervous Forrest

Forrest Gump

My fingertips, and my lips, they burn

From the cigarettes

Forrest Gump you run my mind boy

Running on my mind boy

Forrest Gump

Forrest green

Forrest blues

I remember you

This is love, I know it's true

I won't forget you (you)

(Oh you you) it's for you Forrest, you you

(Oh you you) it's you you Forrest

Forrest Gump

Here's the studio version, with lyrics:

Here's the song, at the Grammys:

In Bad Religion, he sings:

This unrequited love

To me it's nothing but

A one-man cult

And cyanide in my Styrofoam cup

I could never make him love me

Never make him love me

Here he is live on Jimmy Fallon's show:

We discussed Thinkin Bout You (the first single off the album) in our previous entry and listened to a live version. Here, we have the studio version, with lyrics.

Pyramids was the album's 2nd single. The track lyrically contains several extended metaphors referencing Cleopatra, pyramids, and strip clubs. It received highly positive reviews and was called epic in nature by several publications, who praised the ambition and scope of the track's length, along with the lyrical merit. The guitar solo is by John Mayer.

Sweet Life was the album's 3d single. It was written and produced by Ocean and Pharrell Williams. The song features a vocal loop, warm horn sections and lush, tropical production and lyrically explores a narrative of people wasting their life away on the beach and Ocean's desire not to involve himself with such a life. The song draws inspiration from Ocean's own early life.

Lost was the album's 4th single. It was his first Top 10 single in New Zealand (#9).

The single has also been covered by American production trio Major Lazer featuring vocals from Danish recording artist MØ. Major Lazer and MØ, along with Justin Bieber, are currently #1 in the UK with Cold Water. Here's their version of Lost:

Super Rich Kids was the album's 5th single. The song is in the style of R&B and neo soul, and includes references to and samples of the songs Bennie and the Jets by Elton John, Got to Give It Up by Marvin Gaye, and Real Love by Mary J. Blige. It addresses young, wealthy characters' ennui and fears of the financial crisis with dry humor.

In February 2013, Ocean confirmed that he had started work on his second studio album, which he said would be another concept album. He revealed that he was working with Tyler, the Creator, Pharrell Williams, and Danger Mouse on the record. He later stated that he was being influenced by The Beach Boys and The Beatles.

On March 10, 2014, the song Hero was made available for free download on SoundCloud. The song is a collaboration with Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Diplo and is a part of Converse's Three Artists. One Song series.

In June this year, following the executions of gay men in Middle Eastern countries under sharia law by ISIS, and especially the Orlando Pulse tragic shooting, Frank Ocean has shared some moving words on Tumblr:

"I read in the paper that my brothers are being thrown from rooftops blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs for violating sharia law. I heard the crowds stone these fallen men if they move after they hit the ground. I heard it’s in the name of God. I heard my pastor speak for God too, quoting scripture from his book. Words like abomination popped off my skin like hot grease as he went on to describe a lake of fire that God wanted me in.

I heard on the news that the aftermath of a hate crime left piles of bodies on a dance floor this month. I heard the gunman feigned dead among all the people he killed. I heard the news say he was one of us. I was six years old when I heard my dad call our transgender waitress a faggot as he dragged me out a neighborhood diner saying we wouldn’t be served because she was dirty.

That was the last afternoon I saw my father and the first time I heard that word, I think, although it wouldn’t shock me if it wasn’t. Many hate us and wish we didn’t exist. Many are annoyed by our wanting to be married like everyone else or use the correct restroom like everyone else.

Many don’t see anything wrong with passing down the same old values that send thousands of kids into suicidal depression each year. So we say pride and we express love for who and what we are. Because who else will in earnest? I daydream on the idea that maybe all this barbarism and all these transgressions against ourselves is an equal and opposite reaction to something better happening in this world, some great swelling wave of openness and wakefulness out here.

Reality by comparison looks grey, as in neither black nor white but also bleak. We are all God’s children, I heard. I left my siblings out of it and spoke with my maker directly and I think he sounds a lot like myself."

I think that this essay makes it absolutely clear to all the doubters that when Frank spoke of his first (unrequited) love for a man, it wasn't a one-time thing. He clearly identifies as LGBT and we're more than happy to have him on our team.

By the end of last week, Frank Ocean released a visual album called Endless, which was to be a precursor to his album proper, Blond, which came out a couple of days ago. I've listened to both and they both sound great. Endless opens with a cover of an Isley Brothers classic, At Your Best (You Are Love). In 2015, Frank Ocean released a cover on his Tumblr account as a tribute to Aaliyah, one day after what would have been her 36th birthday. The Endless version is slightly different. This is the 2015 version:

No actual tracks of Endless are available on youTube yet, but you can watch/listen to it if you are an Apple customer. I did find videos to songs from Blond though.

Godspeed is, as Frank himself puts it, a "reimagined part of my boyhood", as he promises to "let go of my claim" on a former - possibly unrequited - love interest. Fans will speculate the subject as being that who influenced Ocean's previous album Channel Orange and his coming out. It's impossible to say for sure, but either way Godspeed is a beautiful ode that reminds us that the love we feel is each our own and doesn't need another to reciprocate for it to be true.

A song first showcased live and since immortalised through grainy fan-shot footage, Seigfried (a misspelling of the dragon-slaying Norse warrior Siegfried) sees Ocean lamenting feelings of isolation, his desire to run away and commit to the one he loves. It's one of Frank's most vulnerable moments on the record.

Good Guy is a brief, lo-fi sketch of a piano ballad, which leaves an emotional imprint more than any other on the record and does so less by what it actually says and more by allowing the imagination of the listener to take over. Split into two halves, the opening sees Ocean telling the tale of a blind date to a gay club with a more dominating man who "talks too much, more than I do" and sees it simply as "just a late night out". The song then cuts to two men talking about not having "b*tches no more" and getting their hearts "wrecked" by women. It's a thoughtful look at two opposing facets of modern masculinity.

Originally debuted live in Munich during 2013 (albeit as an early draft), Ivy sees Frank mull over a failed relationship. "I thought that I was dreaming when you said you love me," he sings over a sparse backdrop. Unlike much of the instrumental-heavy taster album Endless, this track sees Ocean's vocals clean-cut and coming to the fore as he spills his heart about "all the things I didn't mean to say / I didn't mean to do". At its climax, Ocean's falsetto begins to crackle as feedback cuts through, like a metaphor for the way he's feeling.

Nikes is the album's lead single, released 24 hours before the new album followed. It shows Ocean's adeptness at making pop music with a difference.

Pink + White, featuring Beyoncé, flows like a summer's breeze, having an almost tropical feel.

White Ferrari is a slow-burning, minimal ballad that makes reference to The Beatles' 'Here, There And Everywhere.

Self Control is a delicate and heart-wrenching love song.

In Self Control, Frank is joined by 20-year-old Swedish rapper Yung Lean,

... and by the lead singer for the indie band Slow Hollows, Austin Feinstein.

Finally, Close to You is a short autotuned track that riffs off Stevie Wonder's vocoder cover of 'Close To You' by The Carpenters, with the song's familiar tune lingering under the surface like an earworm.

On first listen, Blond sounds more personal than Channel Orange, seeing Ocean subtly grow as a songwriter. This is certainly not the last we hear of him. I predict even greater things to come.