With brand new music from Frank Ocean flooding our radios and ears, it was only appropriate to delve into the newly released albums and give an honest review while he’s still hot. Frank Ocean has been making music and infecting the R&B world for years, before a four year hiatus when R&B artist Frank Ocean hadn’t released any of his own new music. With everyone creating enough rumble about his new releases I found myself diving myself into Endless, enjoying the ripe glory of it, when not even a day later; a second album was released.

Blonde or Blond, no matter the spelling, people will continue to wonder. The artwork of the album features a title different than the title seen on Apple Music, and people are curious – is it preference or an intentional artistic way to reference sexuality from Frank Ocean himself? In his song “Nikes” Ocean sings “there are two versions of me” which may allude to his semantic choice. As for me, it be clever or a preference but still doesn’t change the album.

Frank Ocean

Endless, his first hybrid lyrical and visual album, runs just over 45 minutes with no song breaks. Personally I don’t find the visual aspect the most appealing but I came for the music. The album flows beautifully, in a more abstract way than anything; keeping listeners musically content through the steady beats. This album allows you to lyrically experience different phases of emotional moods. The album gets digested as such that you may find yourself awake at 2am suddenly thinking about your own life because of his intentionally deep lyrics. 

Blond is more like a confessional storytelling. Definitely more to the point, highlighting topics including family advice, goodbyes, getting caught up in the feels, acceptance, acting instead of reasoning, smiles while shedding tears, and the obscurity that comes along with it. Ocean finds himself mixed within trials of love and drugs. This is a climactic and powerful musical work presents stages, getting on with life, keeping in mind the things left behind, rumors that have been told and the remaining unsaid stories all while trying to make sober sense of it all. One of the constants throughout the album is his description of how particular feelings can fade or change.

As one of the patient listeners, I collected a great deal from these albums. Hence why it took me so long to write this review, but come on Frank, how long did you make us wait? As I kept re-reading the lyrics while listening it made me grow to love both albums more and more. I highly recommend giving it your ears’ attention for a while, there is a lot you won’t want to miss. 

For Frank’s older albums we suggest coming by Bookmans today. His older work is just as monumental and is the basis for the love that we have for these new releases. For more on his current work and a sneak peak into his new musical release visit his website here.