It’s catchy, it’s memorable, it has cheeky lyrics (“Mind over matter is magic, I do magic”), it even has a feature from another very popular artist, all giving it the appearance of a modern-day pop song. “White Ferrari” is emblematic of what makes the album so effective. All of a sudden, Justin Vernon of Bon Iver jumps in with a falsetto rap. The beat sounds as if white noise was compressed into a synthetic violin, fading into an acoustic guitar played nonchalantly. “White Ferrari” is a gem I missed before I listened to “Blonde” in its entirety. I couldn’t help but feel an urge to reach for the person sleeping next to me and shake them and tell them why I woke them. Listening to “Blonde” all the way through for the first time, I felt the need to tell someone about it (that’s why I started writing this). Each comment was a paraphrase of “I fell in love to ,” or “this music is still fresh two years later.” With “Blonde,” we’re dealing with weapons of mass emotional destruction. I scrolled through the comment section expecting to find positivity and personal connections to the music, and they came in spades. Genius, the foremost reference database for song lyrics, posted its cover art to Instagram to celebrate. The two-year anniversary of this album was this August. Most everyone is sleeping or looking at their phones. We crest a highway overpass and, for the first time, I can see Manhattan. It consumes the listener it carries you into sensory hibernation mode. It embalms me in a solution of synth, catharsis and soul, warming and cutting as it rushes to find all the places it can fill.
With time to spare and earbuds on hand, I couldn’t think of a better time to listen to “Blonde,” Frank Ocean’s second and most recent album.Ĭertain records have a way of finding you in the right places at the right times. There are copper-colored lights popping out every few feet from its tall and exposed staircases. As I write this sentence, we’re speeding past what looks like an oil refinery north of Philadelphia.