The album cover aptly describes Ocean's personal and professional angst: a black man shielding his face, presumably in shame after dying his hair blonde, because it came out green instead. One sees words like visionary thrown about carelessly these days, but the label fits Frank. The perfect translation of the sounds from one's head into a faithful recording has been the source of pain for many an artist this affliction no doubt hit Ocean hard. Last week's drop of Endless, was a quick jab in the form of a "visual album" that set us up for Blonde - or Blond, as the cover art suggests - to hit us with the haymaker. The long gestation of the formerly titled Boys Don't Cry - complete with promises of release dates that never delivered - suddenly turned into a volley of commercial output. For a musician with such a young career, Frank Ocean has been defined by successes and failures in intersectionality surrounding race, class, sexuality and genre, and his self-marketing can be best defined as either haphazardly ad hoc or modern genius. Tonnes of web pages have been - and will be - filled with takes on whether 2012's Channel Orange earned the hype heaped on it upon its release.
"Highly anticipated" is an inadequate descriptor for Blonde, an album for which fans waited seemingly interminably.