[rayword45]

Day 343: Blonde by Frank Ocean

I've been binging a lot of David Lynch recently to the point of making my friends watch Eraserhead with me. Why? Because Twin Peaks season 3 hype even though I hated season 2. Shoot the bandwagon. Why am I mentioning this? Because, with the exception of Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive, all of the Lynch movies I've watched suffer from the exact same flaw.

BLOAT.

And this album suffers from that too. I know we waited a long time for this album (these albums?), but some of these tracks are just a complete and utter waste of time. I don't need to hear some dude's mom talk about how LSD will fry your brain my brain is fried.

But outside of the bloat and filler, this music is pretty damn beautiful. There are some questionable artistic choices (What the fuck is that first two minutes of Nikes? Is this supposed to be social commentary on how bad the shoes suck? No? I'm just stupid? Fuck.) and some unnecessary decadence (yeah we get it man you been popping tabs and your boyfriend broke your heart, you're overdoing this) but the man pours his heart and soul into his music and it doesn't come off as TOO sappy. Just sappy enough. I like tree sap when it makes maple syrup.

In comparison to Channel Orange this album is wimpier and more Drake-esque, but I like Frank more than I like Drake so I don't hate this. It's also quite a bit more spare in terms of arrangements, but that's not a bad thing in my opinion. The vocal performances are as good as ever.

This is pretty decent dishwashing music.

Best Track:
Rating: 8/10