Frank Ocean, 'Boys Don't Cry'

What is it about black queer excellence that elicits this dismissiveness

oh i see the plan of attack here

after being kinda dismissive itt, it turns out i kinda like "blonde" now though i still found myself disengage for stretches of it.

i wish there were more Songs

I got in a sidewalk discussion a couple weeks ago about Channel Orange vs. Blond, they were saying something similar, that they wish there were more songs, but I argued that Blonde was itself attempting something loftier, a kind of intangibility, songs that existed in half-forms and transitions so as to create a dream-like state, it was obscurantism as a thesis, masterfully pulled off with the Endless maguffin and the Boys Don't Cry false title (and resultant book) and even in the Blond(e) ambiguity (even his admin and collaborators receive a smirk when they ask him if it's a masculine or feminine spelling), the experience is wonderfully post-modern while retaining that accessibility. I don't want an album that is "Ivy" and "Pink & White" and a dozen other songs like it, I wanted this

i can appreciate that. and there are other artists for which that works for me (flying lotus comes to mind rn.)

i was somewhat dismissive of blonde when it came out, but it does seem to be specifically created for the type of late summer ennui that i'm experiencing right now

still think Nikes is not a good song tho

Yah I gotta agree, Nikes is weak

aw i like that one!!

I got in a sidewalk discussion a couple weeks ago about Channel Orange vs. Blond, they were saying something similar, that they wish there were more songs, but I argued that Blonde was itself attempting something loftier, a kind of intangibility, songs that existed in half-forms and transitions so as to create a dream-like state, it was obscurantism as a thesis, masterfully pulled off with the Endless maguffin and the Boys Don't Cry false title (and resultant book) and even in the Blond(e) ambiguity (even his admin and collaborators receive a smirk when they ask him if it's a masculine or feminine spelling), the experience is wonderfully post-modern while retaining that accessibility. I don't want an album that is "Ivy" and "Pink & White" and a dozen other songs like it, I wanted this

― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, August 25, 2018 12:21 PM (yesterday) Bookmark

i'm not sure i quite buy blonde as dreamlike and half formed exactly (tho i would apply that to the new blood orange, and they are def cut from the same cloth in some regards), but one thing i do love about blonde that is prob picking up on the same thread is how isolated it feels. there's not much to many of the songs, as if he created them on his own off somewhere in the ether. this is prob true in some sense literally but to me the songs also don't have the feel of being demos or unfinished, so i guess that's where we would break. but there's some quality in the album that dovetails w/ his post-fame public persona as this quicksilver presence that i find really authentic & alluring

i was somewhat dismissive of blonde when it came out, but it does seem to be specifically created for the type of late summer ennui that i'm experiencing right now

― guardians of the gums: i am tooth (voodoo chili), Saturday, August 25, 2018 11:17 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

rt

and tbh i came all the way around to really loving it

welcome

i still rate this below channel orange but "solo" "self control" and "nights" alone make it a classic

it's still a really frustrating listen, there's a lot of brilliant tracks (i especially love "self control" and "white ferrari") but also plenty that feel clunky and half-formed ("ivy", "nights" has some cool parts but doesn't hold together that well, "pretty sweet", "seigfried", "futura free") and i hate the sequencing and the interludes so it doesn't work as an album at all for me.

Fans like him for his maladroit songwriting and well-intentioned gestures. I've made my peace with it.

the interludes are pretty bad but i do rly like that one instrumental that is woven thru the album... i think it lends the album a dreaminess that flatters it. i really like to listen to blonde when i'm flying... it just feels right for when you're above the clouds. but mostly nowadays i just run thru those 3 tracks... i do love "godspeed" too

the andre 3000 interlude on here is one of the most annoying things i've ever heard

blonde feels like a wave of inspiration to me, I haven't wanted to separate out the individual tracks

yeah "godspeed" is great and would be the closer if i'd sequenced it. that one instrumental on its own is fine but then the way it's woven through the album is jarring and takes me out of it, especially when the bits of speech its used behind in both "facebook story" and "be yourself" are pretty inane. i do like "good guy" and "close to you" quite a lot at least.

the andre 3000 interlude on here is one of the most annoying things i've ever heard

― J0rdan S.

It's the rap equivalent of a two-note guitar solo.

yeah i don't count the ones that are actually songs... the mom's voicemail is kinda funny and sometimes i will listen to it for fun but it gets old. "facebook story" is wretched... i stan the woman who dumped that fucker

"good guy" is easily one of the best things he's ever written lyrically... i love that song. i'm glad that it got an extended placement in the blonde shows.

"that fucker" is SebastiAn isn't it which makes the whole thing even weirder

didn't know he'd done an extended version of "good guy" live, checking it out now and it's wonderful

i think "pretty sweet" rules, that tumult of strings at the beginning resolves into one of my favorite melodies on the record (but given that i've always really loved "ivy" and "nights" i think i'm drawn to this record's use of guitars)

"nights" is all about that zoned-out coda for me, I could listen for an hour

I should just stop paying attention to this guy since he hasn't put out anything I've cared for since Channel Orange but anyway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccU0JCRNj3A

who?

not sure Pitchfork will be adding an unnumbered addition to their best tracks of the decade here

his subreddit lol

https://i.redd.it/244rc8wp1mt31.jpg

S:

Self Control
Solo
Skyline To
Nights
Pink + White

D:

Everything else

― neva missa lost, wednesday nights on abc (voodoo chili), Tuesday, March 7, 2017 5:25 PM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

ok, so, i have a playlist that i regularly return to that looks like this

pink + white
ivy
solo
skyline to
godspeed
nights
white ferrari
self control
good guy

^^ i think that four-five of these are better than anything else frank has written. it's a shame that i still can't really stand the other songs on the album.

Chanel tho

sure chanel and bike are also good

*solo version of bike

*BIKING sheesh

ilm frank scepticism is depressing. not enough kids on here

if there's one guy who doesn't get enough praise, it's pitchfork best album of the decade champion frank ocean

true, on this forum

not everyone has to love him but there's a weird suspicion of the motives of ppl who do that runs through the various threads here

No love for ‘Siegfried’?

it's good

skits aside it's all good

and as far as skits go... I don't even skip em

the andre 3000 song on here is so jarring and awful, i skip that every time. worse than any of the skits

m frank scepticism is depressing. not enough kids on here

― nothing (Left),

this place is a most welcome oasis from the suffocating Ocean praise I see elsewhere!

https://i.redd.it/eh80gjhu34j11.jpg

if mild criticism of frank ocean bothers you so much, may i suggest you go to literally anyplace else on the internet?

as I said it's the suspicion of motives that is strange and sometimes ugly. other threads show this attitude has been consistent even when charges have changed (earlier mentions filtered through the ludicrous hipster R&B wars of the early 10s which was exclusively a hipster civil war)

I find the constant suspicion both suspicious and sad next to the enthusiasm and generosity extended towards absolute bullshit like vampire weekend and the 1975 during the same period. it's clearly generational to a large extent

vampire weekend suck

that sure is a lot of words to say "i don't know how to process opinions that differ from mine"

40something for Blond on the 2016 album poll is pretty wild