Frank Ocean has always had his sound down, and now he seems like he has his life figured out, too.
The beauty of self-love and the reality of finding yourself has finally come polished and ready for the public to hear. After many memes and false album dates, it is here. And with all due respect to the angry fans waiting, it was all worth the wait.
Let's talk about the album cover: the album cover is a boxed-in picture with a shot of (supposedly) Frank Ocean covering his face with his hand, his green hair sprayed with water. Now, the album is called "Blond" -- the masculine spelling of it. There is a spelling of the album on iTunes with "Blonde" and on some blogs, writers have just began to call it "Blond(e)." It gives the album two different genders and gives a sense of Frank Ocean as an artist and person.
The album feels as though it had some influence from "Channel Orange" as it has the same sample of the cassettes being changed as the stories change throughout this album. Some songs seem to have been written awhile back, such as "Nights" with the story of Hurricane Katrina hitting. Beyond all that chaos, Ocean was still concerned of love in his life. It shows raw emotion that you will not get from anyone. It shows the emotion that some people will look at and be offended.
Of course, there are influences from Beyoncé, Drake, and many more on "Blond." Drake's style is heavily seen in "Nikes" with the same melodic tone as well as the beat and the voice that he uses. Beyoncé successfully contributes her harmony on "Pink + White" as they always have harmonized together perfectly such as on her own albums.
The main focus of why this album is different, though, is the different tone it gives. In my opinion, "Channel Orange" seemed to be written when he was finding love and when he only seemed to have crushes on people, but also being shy about it. This album is being stepped up and heightened for Ocean. His newfound respect and self-love seeps into each song as he carefully becomes more and more confident. It will have you in tears and also have you loving each and every part of yourself. This album seemed to have helped Frank Ocean as well as vice versa. It was completely raw and packed with emotions that no one can capture as great as this artist.
So was it worth the everlasting wait?
Absolutely.
