Frank Ocean- Nostalgia, ULTRA
Who hasn’t heard of Frank Ocean already? The guy is on nearly every big name rappers record. A breakout start, part of the Odd Future crew shows some serious R&B chops all over his debut full length. I hear all kinds of reflections of the R&B that was awesome in the 90’s/early 2000’s like Ginuwine, Boyz 2 Men, and Usher, I’m sure you get the idea. Despite having a musically interesting record, and an incredible voice for a kid, the record is absolutely 100% just that. Young.
It’s no joke that a lot of R&B songs in this manner are love songs, but in one song, ‘Songs For Women’, Ocean comes straight out and says every thing he writes are love songs. The theme just sort of gets old after a while, even though the beats are class A. The record is not bad by any stretch of the imagination, it’s just immature on a lot of levels, only content wise. The songs on a surface level don’t appear to be about much, ‘Swim Good’s hook is ‘Take off this suit/And swim good/And swim good’. On another level, ‘Swim Good’s real hook is ‘I’m going to take off this suit and swim for something good’. The subtleness gives me a motive to keep listening at that. Unfortunately, there are no particularly good stand out tracks where I think ‘I need to listen to that again’. The songs just are easily forgettable with the exception of his absurd use of ‘Hotel California’ on ‘American Wedding’. His verse on Jay-Z & Kanye West’s Watch The Throne is more memorable than most of the record.
Ultimately, I see Frank Ocean’s second release being a continuation of the same. While I hope I am wrong because the production is incredible and definitely deserves some good MC work on top. Even if I dislike the Odd Future mentality, and in particular, Tyler The Creator, I do appreciate good production work and good hip hop.
Out now, via Frank Ocean’s label, Frank Ocean.
