After its many delays, it was almost too much to take in. It was a brain dump, a folly (though an expressive and artful one) rather than album number two. It couldn’t match it for songcraft, and rather than deliver another shot of its predecessor’s sweet melancholy, it railed and rattled, and felt almost half-formed. A fascinating but ultimately frustrating piece, it was no channel ORANGE.

The 45-minute visual album Endless, streamed exclusively on Apple Music, ended Ocean’s four-year silence. However, the year ended and still no sign.įast-forward to August 2016. In early 2014, he teased that the album was nearly finished but it would be a year before he confirmed that it would now be released in the summer of 2015. Ocean first gave notice of a follow-up in 2013, just a year after channel ORANGE had attracted widespread critical and commercial success. Blonde: the backstoryīlonde’s unwieldy backstory is almost as fascinating as its content. we’ll never be those kids again.' By the time Ivy shudders (quite literally) screaming to a halt, Ocean has his reality in sharp focus: we loved, we lost (translation: ' I fucked up again') and no amount of hazy recollection can shift the lingering pain. 'I thought that I was dreaming when you said you loved me. Blonde’s first two songs contain more ideas, generosity and performance than a multitude of recently lauded confessionals. On opener Nikes – an epic, head-spinning meditation on materialism, fakery (of both goods and people) and mortality, with sidelong references to Shakespeare and Disney for good measure – Ocean sets the tone, signalling the increasing scope and reach of his disarming worldview. 'Real'? The word suddenly wants for meaning. The year’s unremitting horrors were as real as this unpalatable reality age would allow and, four years after he emerged as one of our most watchful commentators with debut channel ORANGE, Frank Ocean bequeathed Blonde: a brooding, exploratory and deeply personal work that prods fearlessly at the reality of 21st century living and its often insurmountable challenges. 2016 felt like a dream – one from which we would surely wake with a start and in a cold sweat, relieved that the worst nightmares are always the ones that we script in our heads in the dead of night.

Frank ocean albums 2016