No one imagined Frank Ocean would return after four years of silence with an album of minimalist, avant-garde R&B, yet here we are, Blonde in hand. Then again, no one could predict what he would return with, or if he would return at all. After the release of Grammy-winning Channel ORANGE and 2011’s Nostalgia, Ultra, Ocean was flooded with fame, a level of attention he avoided: dodging press, turning down guest verses, deleting his Twitter. The continuous teasing of a new record, drawn out by overeager fans, made Ocean’s return nerve-wracking—even after a live-stream video came and went, the visual album Endless appeared, and a music video dropped.
On Saturday, the 17-track full-length was made available — some in physical CD form for those who grabbed his zine, Boys Don’t Cry, at pop-up stores. To return with a record as spacious as Blonde takes confidence, and yet, the deeper the album’s explored, the more it seems to be an acceptance of fragility. Ocean trades the accessibility of Channel ORANGE’s conventionalism for the accessibility of purified emotion. There’s a reason he needed years to create Blonde: The album is rich with influences and thoughts, and shaving them into a cohesive full-length takes, to say the least, quite some time.
The release brings Ocean’s trademark melange to light. Apple Music spells the album title with an “e” whereas Boys Don’t Cry printed Blond. Several of the zines feature alternate covers. The CD’s tracklist differs from the official stream’s. Ocean makes Blonde look like a hasty, albeit beautiful, college final. But, his creative process is still fueled by perfectionism — the type of perfectionist who wakes up early to style intentionally disheveled hair. It’s the crinkled audio of his mother warning him about drugs and alcohol on “Be Yourself,” followed by acid tabs and lines of cocaine getting diva delivery on “Solo”. Blonde is full of rough transitions that were left that way on purpose.
Frank Ocean’s new album embodies his creative process, which shows that we can’t rush perfection.