Our Endless Review: Blonde
Blonde is the second studio album by Frank Ocean and was released on August 20, 2016, exclusively on Apple Music. We finally have the album we’ve been waiting 3 years for!!! On August 1, 2016, a video appeared that showed Frank woodworking and sporadically playing instrumentals on loop, it revealed to be promotion for Endless, a 45-minute-long visual album that began streaming on Apple Music on August 19, 2016 and the day after, Blonde was released! The tracklist is as follows:
1. Nikes 2. Ivy 3. Pink + White ft. Beyoncé 4. Be Yourself 5. Solo 6. Skyline To ft. Kendrick Lamar 7. Self Control ft. Austin Feinstein & Yung Lean 8. Good Guy 9. Nights 10. Solo (Reprise) ft. Andre 3000 11. Pretty Sweet 12. Facebook Story ft. SebastiAn 13. Close To You 14. White Ferrari ft. James Blake & Bon Iver 15. Seigfried 16. Godspeed ft. Kim Burrell 17. Futura Free
So finally after all of the speculation, the pushbacks and all of the memes, we’ve finally got the album we've been waiting for and it’s completely different to what I expected. The album seems a little abstract to me, in the sense that it’s not as obviously clear to me what the songs are about, like with the songs on Channel Orange or Nostalgia, Ultra, (which i was completely obsessed with), you have to give the songs more than one listening to realise whether or not you like or understand it.
One my first listen of the album, Pink & White was my absolute stand out favourite song of the album, its so flowy and chill, such a perfect song to blast out of your car during summer, could honestly listen to this song over and over again. The song features Beyonce, but surprisingly as a background vocalist, she has no verse in the song but her beautiful voice definitely makes an impact on the song. Beyonce also isn’t the only impressive artist featured on the album, Pharrell,
Kendrick Lamar and Andre 3000 all appear in backing vocal and producing roles.
After about two or three more listens of the album, I felt really content with it, not exactly raving about it but not disappointed with it either, it’s a really good album. In conclusion, I can definitely appreciate the direction Frank has gone in with this album, I thoroughly believe that he took this time to make an album that he’s completely proud of and its a great listen especially when you want a chilled out vibe.
Favourite song(s): Pink + White, White Ferrari & Solo
Least favourite song: Pretty Sweet