Memes Aside, Frank's Got Something Special

Frank Ocean has always intrigued me a bit. He’s got that “too cool” yet “sensitive and approachable” vibe to him that even the best artists can’t really have. He just seems like a normal dude, you know? Still, I’ve never listened to his music because everyone seems so obsessed with him and naturally in my head this meant that he was mediocre, playing for the masses, trying to get everyone to love him. But throughout this semester I learned that my intuition about hating the music most people like is wrong (although my intuition about hating most people still holds true), so I decided to give Frank Ocean and his modern R&B sound a try.

His first actual album, Channel Orange, was released in 2012 with a lot of hype. So before this, around age 19, Ocean started ghost writing songs for J Biebs and John Legend, so you could say he was pretty much living the introvert musician’s dream. But after he and Kanye got tight, he joined that group of artists called Odd Future (with like all of the most famous hip hop dudes like Tyler the Creator). While he was chilling with them, he released a mixtape on his tumblr for free to pretty much see the reaction and people went wild. Next came Channel Orange which was obviously a hit (and the one I will be reviewing in a few sentences ;) ), but after this people literally stressed for YEARS about when his next album would drop. Here. Enjoy some memes about the stress.

When Blonde came out, I’m pretty sure everyone thought it was the second coming of Christ or something. There were good reviews from critics and regular people alike, and I think it was when I first understood that people like really appreciated Frank Ocean. But I’m always interested in how artists got their start, so that’s why I chose to review Channel Orange rather than Blonde. If you like Channel Orange, you should give Blonde a try too though.

A lot of critics have given Frank Ocean the “R&B signature of approval” by comparing him to other artists like Marvin Gaye (aka one of the best singers of all time). Pitchfork even called him “one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time”, which is pretty high praise from that blog (even I’m a little nicer than Pitchfork sometimes). Ocean kind of created this album out of nowhere, truly. He was pretty much a nothing before, and now he’s a name that most people would recognize. It’s pretty impressive to say the least.

Ocean uses his social media, specifically his tumblr, to speak to his audience, and that is really beneficial considering his audience is mostly young people. As I mentioned before, he released a mix tape on tumblr before, but perhaps more famous was when he came out as bisexual on tumblr. He was pretty much like, “yeah, when I was 19 I fell in love with a man for the first time” and everyone collectively made this face: 😱. This is because pretty much no other artists have come out in that kind of way – public and unapologetic – since, well, ever. His sexuality since then has always been talked about more than his music, truthfully, which is totally unfair, so in my blog post I’m going to try to stay away from that idea except when I discuss “Bad Religion” next because I feel like it’s not fair that people aren’t listening to his music for other things like sonic quality and stuff. Like he’s super bi, great!! I mean who cares if he uses different pronouns in his songs?? Everyone needs to calm down and just listen to his music for what it is and separate it from all of his personal stuff that doesn’t even matter to the music goddammit. Okay, angry feminist rant over.  (Honestly his sexuality doesn’t come out in his music on Channel Orange anyway because it was pre-coming out, but if you want to look at some of his LGBT kind of music check out Blonde which was released in 2016). But “Bad Religion” is about Frank getting some advice from a taxi driver who seems to be super religious. Everyone thinks that this song is about that guy he wrote about on tumblr, the first guy that he fell in love with, because it was unrequited and this song talks about a guy that he loved but didn’t love him. The only really interesting part of this song is when he says “I want him to love me”, and a lot of critics think that he’s talking about God here, because God is synonymous with being against homosexuality.

Frank Ocean, like a lot of other current and modern singers from that Odd Future group that he’s a part of (think Kanye West here), uses a lot tracks in between his lyrical and longer ones. The only way I can compare this to something I’ve seen before outside of music is the intercalary chapters in The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck (#literarynerd). Like they seemingly have nothing to do with the album because most of the time it is just background music with a person talking that isn’t even Frank, but they add to the album itself by creating a backdrop for some of the songs. Like, this whole album is literally just Ocean going through different memories of his life like he’s flipping through different TV channels, and the first track of the album “Start” is just the sounds of turning on a TV. These seemingly worthless tracks on their own add to the album as a whole and are super important to understanding the whole message behind the album itself. Like just looking at the work that was put into making this album work as a whole but also include tracks that could be considered popular singles just shows how talented of an artist Ocean really is.

Because this whole album is supposed to be completely about his life flashing before him and his different experiences, it’s obvious that Ocean put a lot of emotion and personal experiences into Channel Orange. Some of his personal experiences with money and poverty and love are the main things that Ocean talks about throughout the album, and I’ll be analyzing those in the only way I can (badly and probably completely biased).

“Super Rich Kids” is obviously the main track on the album that talks about money, but before going alllll into that, I’m going to let you in on Frank’s past life. Ocean was literally just like any other person (which is how these stories about people coming to fame usually happens. When is it my turn?? I’m also a struggling student??) He says that his musical success is from listening to some jazz music where he grew up in New Orleans. When he was in high school he started recording music and eventually moved to LA where all of his success happened (as discussed above). But he wasn’t exactly well off at all while he was growing up. He worked many jobs to try and produce his own music when he was still in high school and living in New Orleans, and he had to work in insurance when he was in LA to try and get in with a record company. So because he didn’t grow up rich like some other artists, he has a kind of humbling approach to writing about money that is evident in many of his tracks. In “Super Rich Kids” he discusses all of the good things that come from being rich at a young age, but it ends in a somber note of the character committing suicide and wishing for “real love”. It is super obvious in this song that Ocean doesn’t really respect people who grew up rich because everything was so easy for them, but at the same time he feels bad for them because they are lonely and don’t have real relationships. He seems to really hurt for those people. At the same time, in other songs like “Sweet Life” and “Not Just Money”, he shows situations from the other side of money. Like in “Not Just Money”, he got one of his friends to record this thing that sounds like a mom scolding him, mostly about how she doesn’t have the money to help him go to prom with a girl and that she has to pay the bills. Then in “Sweet Life” he talks about how rich people don’t escape their bubble of “richness” to look outside and see the people that are less fortunate. Like, same Frank. It’s really easy to relate to Ocean after hearing how he feels about money, because a lot of people (including myself) hate money and what it does to people, but also can see the luxury behind it. Like I’m drowning in student loans currently, and I feel like Frank kind of got me in some of his lyrics. It was nice hearing from someone that was so famous yet still understood the problems of not having enough money to pay rent or take a girl out on a nice date.

Frank also talks A LOT about love on this album. Literally anyone can tell that this poor dude has had some bad luck in the past. Even from those “intercalary” songs like “Fertilizer”, I could tell that Frank was like pleading with a girl to stop treating him badly (aka, stop treating me like shit pretty much haha get it “Fertilizer” and shit??). He also goes into how much he loves the female anatomy in like more tracks than I would be comfortable with tbh. Like… there were times when listening where I would turn the music down in fear of someone hearing that I was listening to this SMUT. It’s songs like “Pink Matter” that made me blush constantly, but Ocean is just being true to himself I guess and loving up on women and what he likes about them. Kudos to him for being strong enough to talk about that kind of stuff. He doesn’t just talk about romantic love throughout the album, though. In “Sierra Leone” he talks about how he got a girl pregnant when he was younger (fictional though). Yet the love he expresses in this song isn’t really for the girl herself, but his daughter. I loved how this album wasn’t just about loving someone for sex or for romantic feelings, but also for family. Frank Ocean is just full of love for all kinds of people and things and I love him for being so emotional he’s seriously the coolest.

All in all, Frank Ocean and R&B weren’t as completely mainstream as I thought they would be. I’m pleasantly surprised that I was able to relate to Frank on an emotional and monetary level, and I love that he is just primarily who he is and that he’s unapologetic about it all. I would suggest listening to Channel Orange and give it a chance. It might impact you like it did me.

So this is my last blog post friends L I know, it’s been quite a journey. What have we learned? I guess I can still say I’m snobby, that’s been made quite apparent hasn’t it? But at least I can say I tried all of this new music. I have loved exploring new things and appreciating music of all kinds. Music is really supposed to be something that impacts you and makes you think, and it doesn’t matter what genre it is. Music of all kinds can impact your life, as it has for me on this journey, and I’m so thankful to know that when Taylor Swift actually gets a happy relationship and isn’t talking about hating boys anymore I’ll still have lots of other artists to fall back on. But really, if you take anything away from my blog, just remember that all music matters. It is all valuable. Like you can hate on country if you really can’t stand country. But give it a chance first. Everything is relative to the person who made it and the person who is listening to it. Give everything a chance. Let the music speak for itself, and try to remove yourself from the boundaries of genre.