And although fans were certainly frustrated at times, the unconventional release actually contributed positively to the experience of taking in Ocean's art. In many ways, Ocean's release of Endless, his visual album, and Blonde, his full-length, 'real' record just two days later, was well worth the confusion, different versions, and delays. We patiently await the next one.Frank Ocean risked alienating his fans by delaying his album release so many times, but the fact that Blonde debuted at number one on iTunes shows that the risk paid off. It’s a worthy follow up to ‘Channel Orange,’ although I think I do prefer the former, this release is great and cemented Ocean as one of the greats of our generation. There so many great songs on this ‘White Ferrari,’ ‘Nights,’ ‘Self Control,’ ‘Good Guy’ amongst them. ‘Solo’ is next, a quietly lush song which also received a lot of radio in Aus. A funny, if not heartwarming moment on the album. Next up is the interlude, ‘Be Yourself,’ featuring a voicemail of a mother telling her child not to consume alcohol or drugs.

On ‘Ivy’ he sings “We'll never be those kids again,” perhaps a reference to ‘Super Rich Kids’ from ‘Channel Orange.’ ‘Pink + White’ was co-written and produced by Pharrell Williams, and features the vocals of his aforementioned friend, Beyoncé.

Thanks to triple j’s habit of not necessarily only supporting singles, most of the tracks are familiar to me on this album. For the first 3 minutes of the song, his vocals are very affected before finally delivering his unaffected “no filter” vocals. Only one official single was released, ‘Nikes,’ the opening track. The production takes its cues from Brian Wilson, while the vocals are comaprible to Prince at times. It’s more experimental than his debut, featuring sounds of psych pop, avante garde soul and RnB. ‘Blond’ was recorded across three cities in three famous studios Electric Lady (New York), Abbey Road Studios (London) and Henson (LA, the location of Charlie Chaplin’s old studios). Mere hours later, in the early hours of the next morning, Ocean dropped ‘Blond’ (taking a leaf out of friend, Beyoncé’s book - #81). Instead came the visual release, ‘Endless,’ which fulfilled his obligations to Def Jam. 3 years in the making, Ocean didn’t want to give his next record, ‘Blond’ to the label. Following the release of his ground-breaking album, ‘Channel Orange’ (#148), Frank Ocean owed label, Def Jam, one more album.

Frank ocean albums and songs