You can imagine the frustration he must’ve felt as chatter accumulated that he couldn’t be bothered to finish his album, when in reality he was merely taking the time he felt necessary to get it right.Īs he sings (in more vivid language) at one point in “Endless”: “I never let a random shoot the B-roll.” See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour > » But Ocean’s debut also reflected his old-fashioned belief in the value of committed work it’s laced with worry about the trouble that can find idle hands.Īnd what else is there to draw from “Endless” - a new short film with music, posted Friday online, in which Ocean is shown painstakingly building a wooden staircase - than that this guy sweats the details like few others? “Channel Orange” showcased his formal innovation and an all-too-rare R&B voice singing about same-sex love. This isn’t messiness or laziness on the singer’s part. But the rest of the song resists clear interpretation, as does most of the material on “Blonde.” (Tellingly, the album’s title is even spelled differently depending where you look.) Many of the 17 tracks feature Ocean’s sturdy but yearning voice over acoustic or undistorted electric guitar others add keyboards, strings or programmed beats but avoid the layered density that defines virtually everything on the radio - and that’s despite a crowded credits list that includes Beyoncé, West, Kendrick Lamar, Rick Rubin, Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead and the Beatles (from whom Ocean borrows a bit of “Here, There and Everywhere” at the end of his “White Ferrari”).Ī resident of New Orleans who moved to Los Angeles after Hurricane Katrina, Ocean seems to be recalling that fraught period of his life. Where those earlier albums seemed to take in as much of pop music as possible - to use every sound and texture at the disposal of today’s Internet-equipped creator - “Blonde” is rigorously contained, almost ascetic in its clean-lined minimalism. Push beyond the branding strategy, though, and actually listen to “Blonde” - which appeared in physical form Saturday at pop-up shops in four cities and can now be streamed or downloaded only through iTunes and Apple Music - and you quickly realize how different the R&B singer’s project is from “Lemonade,” “Anti” and “The Life of Pablo.” So much about Frank Ocean’s gripping new album, “Blonde,” seems to put it in line with recent high-profile records by Beyoncé, Rihanna and Kanye West, from its short-notice release to its limited availability to its expansive roster of collaborators.

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