It’s a decade since the Los Angeles musician released the seminal album Blonde. To lessen the pain of his hiatus, we count down the best of an artist who redefined R&B
Frank Ocean’s pre-fame demos are hard to find – there’s a fan-made, 64-track compilation called The Lonny Breaux Collection floating around – but worth checking out, as evinced by this brief but potent piano ballad. Sweet but heartsore, it packs an emotional punch; it would have been a highlight of the mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra, had it made the cut.
The stark penultimate track on Ocean’s “visual album” Endless – just vocals and gently fingerpicked acoustic guitar – takes its name from the invisible energy of the Higgs field, which the lyrics seem to equate with love. It presents the emotion as mysterious and fleeting; Ocean’s voice is racked, the melody haunting.
One of a string of singles Ocean put out between 2017 and 2020 – his last releases to date, although he obliquely mentioned a new album during his chaotic Coachella appearance in 2023. Dear April was billed as acoustic, but it’s built around jazzy electric guitar and synth washes – understated, but truly beautiful.
Several tracks on Nostalgia, Ultra featured Ocean singing over other people’s music, but American Wedding – based on the Eagles’ Hotel California – prompted legal action. It’s understandably a fan favourite: he may nick the tune, but Ocean replaces the original’s coked-out ennui with anguish that snags against the slickly familiar backing.
The visual aspect of Endless – in which Ocean assembled a flight of stairs – may have been wilfully boring, but the music that accompanied it boasted tension between its hazy, dreamlike quality and its raw, mixtape-like roughness. This is audible to spectacular effect on Slide on Me’s blend of bumping R&B, lo-fi ambience and vocals that sit somewhere between nonchalant and pained.
Another of Ocean’s one-off single releases, the bilingual Cayendo fitted its moment perfectly. Released at the height of the Covid pandemic, it sounded as if it had been recorded by someone locked in their bedroom. Its muffled, grumbling guitar and vocal – shifting from deep and effect-smothered into anguished and emotive – captured a mood of troubled introspection.
The first taste of Ocean’s second album, Blonde, threw listeners a curveball – a spare, crestfallen song that references the murder of Trayvon Martin, over half of which is sung by Ocean with his voice sped up to the point where it sounds nasal and cartoonish. Inexplicably, it works, musically and as a statement of leftfield intent.
Take your pick from either version of Biking. The A-side pulls Jay-Z and Tyler, the Creator into Ocean’s strange sound-world – Jay-Z sounds as if he is rapping after being locked in a cupboard. The “solo” version lops off the lo-fi intro and features Ocean’s urgent vocal over an unhurried beat and languidly strummed acoustic guitar.
Rushes seems to reflect on a relationship gone wrong: “First I was rushing for a wait / This time I’m waiting for a rush.” It makes fantastic use of Ocean’s chief vocal foil on Endless, Jazmine Sullivan, burying her powerful voice in the mix so it functions like another instrument, adding suitably heady uplift to the chorus.
Bad Religion is effectively the sound of Ocean coming out, tormented by his love for another man and his closeted status. It would have been a bold move whatever it sounded like, but it’s also a fantastic song, deploying the dramatic sound of a church organ and delaying the arrival of the beat until its immense climax.
White Ferrari is far from the usual driving anthem; rather, it evokes someone lost in thoughts and memories as they motor along. It’s daring – there is no chorus, the arrangement keeps changing – and beautifully done, from the fleeting interpolation of the Beatles’ Here There and Everywhere to Justin Vernon’s heart-stopping guest vocal.
Should you require evidence of how different Ocean was, consider Pink Matter, a complex, thoughtful rumination on the female anatomy – presented as a dialogue with a sensei – that’s about as far from your standard male R&B star’s approach to the subject as you could get. Plus: a fantastic guest verse from André 3000.
Get music news, bold reviews and unexpected extras. Every genre, every era, every week
One of four billion-streaming tracks from Blonde, Nights’ exploration of a mind working overtime in the small hours – picking through childhood memories, the pressures of fame, failing relationships – sounds amazing. It warps and changes with each passing thought: clanging alt-rock guitar; eerie synth ambience; heavy-metal arpeggios; warm, beat-forward R&B.
