Dissect - Blonde | LAST SONG STANDING (E4)

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

Cole and Charles continue their journey to crown Frank Ocean's greatest song of all time with his landmark album, Blonde. The LSS Boyz take us back to the album's surprise release, quiz each other with album facts, and then debate what songs from Blonde should be in the running for Frank's best ever. Official LSS S2 Playlist here. Fan vote for the finale episode @dissectpodcast on Instagram or Twitter. Producer: Justin Sayles Audio Editor: Kevin Pooler Theme Music: Birocratic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome everyone to Last Song Standing. I'm Cole Kushna. And I'm Charles Holmes. And in this second season of Last Song Standing, we're diving deep into one of the most mysterious artists of the generation, Frank Ocean. Col and I are debating our way through his entire catalog in an effort to decide what's the greatest Frank Ocean song of all time. Last episode, we tackled Frank singles and features and then revisited Frank's most mysterious project to date, endless. And on today's episode, the sluggish, lazy, stupid, and unconcerned bull. Boys of Music Podcasting are tackling one of the most important albums of the 21st century, Blonde. All right. When we envisioned this season of Last Song Standing, this was the one where I'm just like, we do the whole season for this. I think this is the most excited I've ever been to talk to you about anything, including Kendrick Lamar. This is the one where I'm just like, no, we're doing it this episode.

Yeah, I have like butterflies in my stomach right now. I'm excited and nervous. I haven't been, I haven't felt this way to record a podcast in a long time. There's so much to get into. We've been texting each other. We've been trying to stay our cakes. We've been pre-arguing. Yeah. We are chomping at the bit trying to get to this episode. I'm so glad we've arrived at the moment. But before we get too far into it, let's just recap for the listeners. What we've covered so far, here's our lists going into this penultimate episode. Charles, your list is, your list is looking pretty good, dude. You got pyramids from Channel Orange, swim good from nostalgia ultra. You got Chanel as the single and at your best,

you are love from endless. That is, I got to say, man, that's an unpeachable list of songs. Yeah, but it's also very basic. Like, if you have, had to be like, Charles, he loves the singles. That's very true. And then you, you, in classical fashion, in classic, you pivoted, you have bad religion, which is not a bad choice at all. Then you have Novocaine, biking, and then you never would have guessed it, Higgs. Well, to my credit, it's just not obvious on endless.

You got like, you got the standout shirt. You kind of cheated, got the standout track. Higgs, beautiful song, but as we talked about last time, endless is so hard to pull from. It's such a complete one kind of note project. It's hard to just pluck a song off of there. But now for those that have forgotten, Cole, let's get into it. Each episode of Last Song Standing covers one album where we are both forced to pick the best song off that album, aka the Last Song Standing.

Then in our season finale next week, we'll have a Royal Rumble where we'll bring the songs we've chosen from each album and duke it out until we both can agree on what is single greatest Frank Ocean song of all time. Yeah, so what we haven't told you guys yet, like we did last season, we're going to let the voters, the listeners, have a vote and pick a song by democracy on social media that will then be entered into the Royal Rumble next week. And so it's a song, obviously, that we didn't pick from our list, one that you guys feel like we missed, and that should be in contention for Frank's best song of all time.

You can do that on Twitter, or I guess it's called X now, what the fuck. At Dysake Podcast or on Instagram, I'm going to be putting polls on both platforms and then I'll do kind of a, I'll tally them all up. So go to Twitter and Instagram at Dysak Podcast, vote for your favorite or best Frank Ocean song.

You got to do that quick though. You have to vote by the end of the day, August 23rd. So because we're recording, we got to get your vote soon. So as soon as you listen to this episode, go vote. I'm really looking forward to it, because there's so many great songs that we just kind of have to leave off the lists, our lists. And, you know, last year, it was this, the fan vote last year came in clutch because

seeing about you ended up being a really important song in that last finale episode. If you had to guess, what song do you think that they're going to vote in? Dude, Pink Matter is getting a lot of chatter online already. All right. Everybody needs to relax. You shit it all over it. Yeah, I feel bad because here's the thing we record these podcasts. And then I'll start seeing people. talk about what songs they like and I'm like, did I shit on that last episode?

I'm going to put my money on thinking about you. I think a lot of people are going to be like, how could this not be on in the finals? But honestly, if we're being real, it's probably going to be something we don't pick off blonde. Yeah, I think for sure it's going to be off blonde. I can almost guarantee you thinking about you is going to receive like it's going to be in the bottom tier. Like I don't think it's going to get at all. You know your audience way better than I do.

You know what? If neither of us pick it, if I have to, to, the TikTok teens, it might be like pink and white. Don't spoil it. But anyway, yo, Cole, we got all the voting out of the way. Let's throw to a quick ad break. And when we get back, we're going to talk about some facts about the album and some concepts and themes.

Make sure you stay tuned. All right. We are back here to talk about blonde, which was released on August 20th, 2016. It's the long-awated follow-up to Channel Orange. It features production from Ocean, Malay, Omas Keith, Farel, John Bryan, among a lot of others. It only spawns one single, which is Nike's, and the album sells 276,000 album equivalent units in its first week. The project was met with near instant critical acclaim upon its arrival. Since 2016, the project has been regarded as one of the best albums of the 2010s.

Rolling Stone ranked it at number 79, 500 greatest albums of all time list, and Pitchfork ranked Blonde number one on the 200 best albums of the 2010s list. Now, Blonde is a very, very heady, big project. So, Cole, could you break down for the listeners thematically what Frank is trying to achieve on this project? Yeah, it's a lot. After Channel Orange, Frank suffered from Riders Block for nearly a year. And it was only cured after speaking with a childhood friend from New Orleans

that had fell on tough times. And that inspired Frank to talk about the way he grew up more. And so kind of in contrast with Channel Orange, which is very story-centered, very fantasy-oriented. Frank said this about blonde, quote, there's no fantasy on blonde at all. It's all for better or worse, autobiographical. It's my experience, the foundation, what's made me who I am.

And so in this way, I think blonde feels more like a coming-of-age story, but it doesn't have like a traditional plot line. It's more like a kaleidoscopic mosaic of kind of his childhood and transition into adulthood. So Blonde is very fragmented. It's very unstructured. And this reflects the way that Frank actually perceives memories. He said, quote, how we experience memory sometimes, it's not linear. We're not telling the stories to ourselves. We know the story. We're just seeing it in flashes overlaid. And then probably, you know, throughout Blonde, the most prominent theme that keeps coming up over and over, aside from kind of nostalgia, is this idea of duality. We see this reflective. with things like childhood versus adulthood, day versus night, and masculine versus feminine energies. And I think this is really like the crux of the album.

Because Frank is like he's done nostalgia before on both projects. But, you know, the kind of new breakthrough of this album is this realization that two opposing forces could be true simultaneously. And this allows him to look back on memories of loss and heartbreak, but remember them fondly and with reverence. By doing this, he really liberates himself from any resentment or grief attached to those memories and allows him to color all of his memories blonde. So I have something to reveal to you, Cole. That was beautiful. This album, when I first heard it, I hated it. Really? And like, this is coming from, this is one of my favorite albums now. But when I first,

like, my first gut reaction to this album was turn this shit off. Wow. Because you have to remember, we had been waiting so long and endless drops, right? So I stay up all night to watch Endless, which is a very meandering project. And I'm not saying that in a negative way. That is just like that is one of the, I think it's purposefully like one, it's called Endless. Right. But we didn't have an album really. If I wanted to listen to it, I had to be on Apple and watch this whole stream. So by the time Blonde comes out, there's the excitement that I'm like, oh, Endless wasn't the real project.

Then you listen to Blonde, and it was such a departure. Hearing Nike's for the first time, Nike's doesn't sound like anything else in Frank's discography. I almost thought it was annoying. And I was waiting. I was just like, what is this album about? Especially because he only does one interview around this time. He does one with John Caramonica at the times. So if you really wanted to understand this project, you had to do a rare thing where you just had to sit with it.

Where you're literally just like, what is he trying to say? There are these competing voices. He's pitching his voice up and down. Songs are starting and stopping. There's random people coming in to give you like interludes that seem like they don't connect to anything. And I think it took me about a week or two to really be like, all right, let me just like listen to this again to get it. Because that first listen was so jarring because this does not sound like Channel Orange in the slightest. Yeah, I mean, well, you can say that about most great albums, you know, the big, or especially the revolutionary innovative album, which blonde is for sure that.

It's uncomfortable the first time you hear it. Yeah. It's because if you, it's just like hearing anything foreign for the first time, you just, the gut reaction is like, this doesn't sound familiar. And just human nature a lot of times is just, you know, if it's foreign, we're just going to immediately kind of resist it. But I think that was probably a lot of people's experience. I think a lot of people were out on the album early because they weren't willing to give it that second, third, fourth listen. But this is a project that demands your attention. It's not just something you kind of throw on.

You know, I don't actually listen to Blonde all that often because it's such an experience that it's just not something I want to go through all the time because when I listen, I really want to listen to it. But yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking back. to my first experience of it. I stupidly, okay, so this is like me emerged. This is exactly the time me emerging out of my college black hole of classical music and like starting to figure out what was going on in the real world. Blonde to Pimp a Butterfly, all these 2015 albums that come out during this time are the ones that kind of reintroduce me to popular music at this time.

And so I've heard Frank Ocean. I heard the hype around this album. I push play. I remember it vividly. I push play on my fucking iPhone of all places. I didn't even put it on this stereo. It was like, so stupid. I was like, I heard this high-pitched voice.

I was like, is this all the hype? This is all what it's about. And then, of course, I, like, actually gave it some good listens and I just absolutely fell in love. Is that what is wild about blonde? Is that he starts it with Nike's? Like, Nike is such a jarring way to be like, hey, guys, here's my new album. But think about waiting years to hear Frank. And the first thing you hear from him on his, like, proper, not endless on his proper song.

where album is Nike's or just like, what the fuck is going on? Are we okay, guys? And what's hilarious about this project is the vibes are of it are so intense. My girlfriend at various points was just like, why are you listening to such depressing music? Like, stop. I think we are talking around something that we have kind of been chatting about, which is, Cole, I take it that both you and I think that this is easily Frank's best album, Barna. It's not even a, question to me. And I'm, I mean, I'm ready to put it in the conversation of like, Sergeant Pepper, Kid A, Pet Sounds, like, revolutionary albums, generation defining album. I'm like ready for that conversation. Oh, that's already done for me.

That's not, I have already put it there. Like, it is there in terms of like the Pantheon, okay? I think it is, I was at Rolling Stone when we read it our 500 list, blonde at number 79. I was just like, this is better than a lot of the actual albums you put in the top 25. That's no longer here or there. But I wanted to ask you, why do you think so many people don't regard blonde as Frank's best album? And what I mean by that, if you're a Frank fan, Stan, or you are a music critic, that is conventional wisdom that this is the best. But if you are a regular listener of music or just like, ignore me, most people either load this album or don't even know it exists or ignore it. What do you think about it? Like, do you, am I,

tripping or is that something that you've also seen where a lot of people are always like, what's the hype with this album? Yeah, I mean, I think of the infamous Joe Budding quote where he was still, I think, on that complex show with academics. And academics, surprisingly, was vouching for blonde. And then Joe Budden said, oh, you mean the project with no drums? It was trash. You know, like he was just out because there was no drums, which I actually do think is, there is barely any drums on this record. You know, in the beginning we get a little bit, but I think some of the strongest songs have no drums. I mean, some of the strongest songs on this album barely have any instruments at all. Yeah. Or like they're very muted. It is like a guitar melody or it is a simple

piano melody and that is it, which is also, I think, very, very jarring to a modern listener being like, where are the drums? Why am I only hearing this very quiet melody? And also, if we're going to be honest, the way he is building to your point, this kaleidoscopic impressionistic album, unless you really surrender yourself to it, I think a normal listener could be very put off by it. Well, I mean, just think about this exercise, sing a hook on this record.

I mean, yeah, you know what's the hope that I can sing? No, I mean, nothing comes to mind, though. It's not obvious what comes to mind. I've told you to do that with Channel Orange, you would have five in a row you could just easily bounce up. You know what I mean? Like, it takes you,

I'll actually think of a memorable, the first one I think of as Ivy's, which is not even really a hook. I thought, you know, you were dreaming when I said, you said you loved me. That was the one I thought about too. And I was just like, it's not really a hook. Yeah. But it's, it does not hit your brain like a hook. Yeah. Which is, we're going to talk about this a lot. Because also, I think the thing that when you were even reading your, your themes of this album, Frank Ocean is breaking so many rules. And what I mean by that is we're taught in art. We're just like, what's the elevator pitch for this album? If somebody's like, what's the elevator pitch for the college dropout?

It is all there in the title. I'm like, this is about a Chicago rapper, rapping about his, it's a loose concept album about him dropping out of college. You just get it. You're like, what's the elevator pitch for blonde? It'd be like, well, it's kind of an autobiographical story, but it's nonlinear.

And also it's about duality. But it's also about like aging and day and modern day and all this stuff. You're just like, no thank you. I'm good. That is also the thing. where if you describe blonde, it sounds way less inventive and revolutionary than if you just listen to it and you're just like,

oh, okay, I get it now. Yeah, I mean, and it's very cinematic. It's a, I think in even the Dysect podcast, I said it's a world you step into. Yes. Yeah, it's not chasing hits at all. It's not, song structures are totally reinvented

with every single song, it seems like. Every song is its own complete idea. He doesn't take any musical cliche for granted, meaning he's not going to just rely on verse chorus, verse chorus as the structure. It's like he's reinventing every aspect of the song. And again, it's like we talked about on Channel Orange, him trying to channel emotions. And I think he's doing the same thing on Blonde. He's just taking a different approach and maybe even a more extreme approach where

everything is about evoking a feeling. It's not about adhering to song structures or these musical cliches. It's how am I best going to express the feeling of this song? And then him tinkering and tinkering and tinkering with instrumentation, structure, like, everything affects until that feeling is exactly how he wants it expressed. And I think that it's like, yeah, you can't really sing a hookoff blonde, but you ask someone how it makes him feel. Oh, I can remember the feelings that this album gives me in a way that is hard for a lot of albums where I'm like, I remember the places and the smells and like the sounds vividly, which I think is what Frank wants. Yeah. I mean, is there a song on here that just, like, give me the song.

There's one song that makes me cry literally every time I hear it. Do you have a song like that on here? Oh, I do. Let's do the crying corner before we go to our next segment. Can you guess it? Because it is probably one of the least listen to songs. It's my favorite. I'm not going to pick it.

I don't think either of us are going to pick it. But it's like, it is my favorite song off this. I cry to it. And I'm just like, yeah, what do you think it is? I don't think you're going to guess it. I might say, is it Godspeed? It is not Godspeed. I like Godspeed, but is not Godspeed.

Okay, what is it? All right. I really, really love Good Guy. It's your good guy. He looked it up. I was an N wide. I should look you up. I,

first time I never saw you. Oh, really? I really, like, just it being his voice, it being such a short story. But it says so much about the project and it says so much about Frank. And what I mean by that is like, you think about Drake, you think about the weekend. They're always, when they get famous, they're always singing about how the world has changed around. Everybody's changed.

They haven't changed. They're the same. Dating is amazing. Fucking everybody's amazing. All of your. All this. Good guy flips it. Frank has everything he wants now.

and he's going out on a date where this person doesn't need him. Like, the fame does not help him. And it's like this, the best why I can describe why I love this song so much is it was because it was the time in my life when I was like in my mid-20s going out dating. And I was just like, no, this is, this sums it up. The fact that we're just two extremely lonely people and we just need to be together for the night. But knowing we don't like each other and this is not going anywhere, that emotion is what he gets on good guy. Even the form of the song makes perfect sense within that context, which is like

the short, sweet date. It's like that short sweet date. Yeah. Where you're just like nothing went wrong. But when he's like, what's the line he says about you text nothing like you look? Like that's such a bar bro. I know. Because I'm like, I've had that too. I've been hooked up with someone before and like we're texting and everything is going good. And then you're just like, oh, okay. You text nothing like you look. you talk way more than I do is such I'm just like that happens on a day like yes you're a good guy is that for me what wait let me guess like is the song that you're picking I'm not picking it in my nominations it's like you're not picking it in your nominations is it's uh future or free no but that does emotionally hit me but it's it's godspeed I kind of spoiled it how I do Godspeed I thought you were

going to pick Godspeed no yeah I can't pick as much as I want to pick it because when he comes in and says, I will always love you, I just fucking crumble every time. I thought, damn it. Fuck, you're fucking me up. I thought you were going to pick Godspeed, so I didn't pick it. I don't need to pick it. Okay, well, for me,

it's not enough a complete idea on its own, and God, I hate saying that about it, but it's like, it's such a part of that run of three songs of White Ferrari Siegfried and Godspeed that I feel when you when you detach it from that run,

from the album, it doesn't quite hold up as a singular song, or it doesn't carry the same impact. God, I can't even. This is Zach, when he comes in with the, I will always love you. Oh my God. I like, Dr. Chills every single time. Yeah, and it's like co-written by James Blake,

who one of my favorite current artists, who also has an angelic voice. It's just, yeah, it's the one that gets, I heard it in a coffee shop recently, and I started tearing up in the coffee shop. Jesus Christ. Yeah, there's so many moments on blonde, though, that he's so good at enveloping you in a feeling that, frankly, like, not like any other current artists can for me, not even in Kendrick. Like, Kendrick has moments.

Kendrick is my artist. We've talked about this. But even Kendrick, you know, can't do what Frank does. He does it in moments like a sing about you, but it's very few and far between. Frank just seems to do it. I don't think he can do it for a whole album. Yeah, Frank does it for an whole album. Yeah.

Just it's, and it brings you through, it's like my childhood was probably nothing like his, but it just, I'm reflecting on my childhood, on my past relationships. And even like, the sentiment of the album was honestly really life-changing for me, the idea that you can look back on memory, like, being comfortable with who you are today allows you to look back on past memories of loss or heartbreak or grief and like remember them fondly. that has been such a philosophical kind of guidepost in my life now and it really changed the way that I've viewed my past and staying, yeah, just appreciating every moment. Sounds cliche, but like the good and bad, the duality of good and bad,

how that expresses just the life, you know, life in general, just that duality of suffering and joy. It just allows you to have, like, I think it just, a very beautiful perspective on who you are, who you've been, who you're becoming, and ultimately what your end will be. Like the album somehow captures everything about life and a very just beautiful and, I don't know, am I overselling here?

I love you so much, Cole. I wish I could just hug you right now. I wish I could just come through the computer screen and hug you. That was such a beautiful aspect. I didn't mention, is that, I mean, sorry, before you move on, Are you? Because I know you see, I know you by now. I'll say something sweet. And then your instinct is just to pivot away before you show any emotion. Oh, no, no, no. I was speaking too much. I'm just like, I can't. Because like, here's the thing. I'm going to get emotional later in the conversation. So I'm like, I can't spoil it now. But everything you were saying, I'm just like, Cole is my boy. Like, he's just like he gets it. Like he gets it. We're tapped. We're tapped in. All right. Let's let's hit him with my favorite segment of the show, maybe. Your favorite. All right. Now it's time to move on. to what is equally our favorite segment. It's called Super Quiz Kids.

Here's the thing. What's going to be interesting about Super Quiz Kids is that there is not a lot about this album. There's a lot written about this album critically. But as we said, Frank Ocean has only done one interview. Most of the producers, engineers have spoken, but they have not really spoken that much about this record because of the way it was created and how secretive it was. So I'm very interested to see.

I'm pretty sure he made most of them sign NDAs. Yes. So for those that have forgotten, Super Quiz Kids is where Cole and I attempt to stump each other with little known facts about the album. Whoever gets the most questions correct will get first pick in the last song's standing segment at the end of the episode. Cole, I'm going to go first. All right. All right. I'm going to bring out the big gun.

All right. Godspeed, one of your favorite songs, has a accompanying. screenplay in the Boys Don't Cry magazine. Can you name all of the characters that appear in the screenplay? Oh my God. I had to go hard. I had to go hard. There is six. Okay. I don't know this, but true or false, I own the extremely limited Boys Don't Cry magazine. Yes or no? Absolutely true. Absolutely true. That's why I put it in here because I'm like, I know he owns it, but I don't know if he's really been in the trenches with it. So you don't know any of the names.

No, I mean, I definitely read it when I was doing a season on him, but it's been five years since I did that. So I know what are the names? Steely, Shuby, Matthew, Garton, Clark, Danny. All right. Did you read it? Did you read the screen? I started reading some of it, but I'm going to, I'm not going to lie. I was a little bit like, I think there's a reason, Frank is an R&B singer and not a sci-fi.

screenplay writer. No offense, Frank. I love you, Frank, but yeah. So, all right, I finally got one on you. Okay. Now it's your turn. All right. So, blonde ends with a lengthy sound collage of kids sharing answers or answering questions about themselves. Who are these kids? Jeez. They're like a, group. They have a name. You're going to have to tell me. All right. It's the LA skateboard collective called illegal civilization. Yeah. And it also includes his younger brother. I knew it was his younger brother.

I did not know the collective. Like I knew the younger brother part did not know. That was a good one. That was good. This, my next one is probably too easy, but maybe not. We know that Frank Ocean loves cars, correct? Oh, yeah. In a letter discussing blonde, Frank Ocean described the feeling of making this album as being in

the presence of a specific car. What car did he compare blonde to? Oh, that's a really good question, because I definitely reread the letter. But he has a couple cars that he mentions in it. Was it an Audi? It wasn't. Oh, shit. Was it the BMW then? Nope. Okay. I don't, yeah, then I know. McLaren F1. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he has that anecdote about how, like, I think it's the sentence after he was saying, like, Raft Simmons was essentially like, this is such a cliche. hetero boy thing to be into cars. Yeah. Which is very, very funny for, for like,

I'm just like, Tyler and Frank, so much of their existence has to do with their love of cars, which is like very, very funny. What's your, neither of us have got one on the board. What's your, what's your next one? Oh, okay.

I have like four here. So let me, let me make sure I give you the best one. Here, let's do it. Let's just do a rapid fire. Let's see if I get any. Okay. What song does Kanye West

to have riding credits for. Is this a trick question? Is it the McDonald's song from The Boys Don't Cry Magazine? No, that's great. You remember that, but no, it's white Ferrari. It's not, I don't, it's not clear what he wrote. It's not obvious to me. I don't know if it was like a sample,

one of those obscure samples you're here in the background or something, but Kanye West does have riding credits for that. Damn, I was trying to, I thought you were trying to trick me. Damn. This one's a softball. What was the original long rumored title of blonde? Oh, that's easy, boys don't cry. All right, good.

when Frank had Riders Block post-channel Orange, he left the country and moved into an apartment in what city? Was it London? Yep. Because Blonde was made in a couple places, but London, I think, was definitely the place where he stopped all of the Riders Block stuff. Yeah, it was kind of in tandem with that conversation, but also he was getting very disenfranchised from L.A. It sounded like some drama was happening, which just wasn't a good environment for him, so he ended up just leaving it as part of a bigger, it's very symbolic. at Frank leaving L.A., leaving the music label, leaving that life. It wasn't even just the label.

Wasn't it around this time where I think he gets new management or like his team, he distances himself from his team? Like this was very much like Frank taking stock of his entire career. Exactly. And then blonde is like him like the coming out party of like, this is how I want to be an artist now. Yeah, exactly. And that's a thing because as I touched on in the themes and stuff,

like you don't realize how it sounds like he just went through such a transformation in between channel orange and blonde personally seems like he have re-evaluated his life made all these changes or worked towards all these changes that really culminated in blonde in terms of like it is the album that he released independently it is the album that he swindled both deaf jam and apple music for 20 million dollars like it was just like the master plan that he'd been brewing for years that was a part of this bigger transformation of him taking hold of his life and really deciding on what he wanted to do with his life. It's such a, like, blonde somehow encompasses and symbolizes all of that stuff. Also, we forget, too, these years, like, there were, like, big failures. Do you, I don't know if you were, like, checked in like this, but do you remember when he, like, flopped at the Grammys? He was performing Forrest Gump. And, like, it just went terrible.

Yeah. And it's kind of interesting because now we have a similar thing at Coachella. where I think there's a lot of stuff that goes on with Frank, but I definitely remember this time as I think you could put the Grammy performance in this as well as like he seemed very uncomfortable with the trajectory of his career. And that's, I think goes hand in hand with what we were talking about, which is I think there are a lot of fans that stopped with Channel Orange because what emerges after that is almost like up before and after.

Like Frank is almost a different artist in a way, which makes, talking about him different. Like weird because I'm like, the blonde Frank is nothing like anything else. Yeah, I mean, it's because he did try that hat on for a couple, like at least a year there, right? After Channel Orange,

he does a little tour. He does the Grammys. He does a couple of late night talk show performance. S&L. He does all the things. He does the things. And you can kind of tell that he wasn't really into it or comfortable or it didn't go well for him or whatever it was.

And it seems like he had a taste of that life, decided that life was not going to be for him, and then started building this master plan to like, you know, and it doesn't also doesn't help that Def Jam shelved him. So, you know, he couldn't have had great feelings about that label since day one. And I don't know. I feel like we actually don't talk about that part enough of him, of this mastermind plan post-channel Orange to buy out to fulfill his record contract with Endless to buy out Channel Orange, apparently owns Channel Orange now, owns the master recordings for those, gets somehow without Def Jam or Universal Knowing,

strikes a deal with Apple Music for exclusive window release of blonde for $20 million. Like, holy shit. Like, I guess behind the scenes he is telling his friends his plan and all of them said, this is going to like fail. I mean, and to be fair for him to at that point. point have to buy out his masters, he was probably broke. If I'm going to be real, if this does not work out, like, I don't know if there's a Frank Ocean left in terms of like Def Jam. That album has thinking about you. Like, thinking about you is still streaming today.

Right. So I don't know what that conversation was like, but there are very few artists ever in recorded history that can make that type of move off of their debut album. Like, There are very, it took, it took Jay-Z years, decades to even get to the point where he could start buying back his master. So Frank was, Frank is a one-of-one. It's time. We've set up the history and the themes of blonde, but we're moving on to nominations. And the winner is Frank Fitt. Frank.

Remember the goal of each episode is simple. Last song standing is for Cole and I to determine the single best song from a Frank Ocean album. The songs we select over the course of the season will then duke it out in a season finale Royal Rumble, which is next week. And we will be forced to crown the last song standing. But right now, it's nomination's time. Cole, who should go first? I would like you to go first.

You would like me to go first. All right. I'm setting the tone. I'm so curious, dude. We've been like behind the scenes. I was kind of like trying to feel out where you're going. I didn't want too much overlap, but I still have no clue what you're picking. So here's the thing.

I know we overlap on one song. I already know with that. So I won't do that first. I will go with the song that I think is objectively the most popular off this album and the one that I think carries a bunch of weight in terms of understanding the album. I have to go with nights. I think Knights is the platonic ideal of a Frank Ocean pop song. If you want it, when we talk about Novakane to swim good, to thinking about you,

I think there's a clear trajectory that you can map in terms of like how good he is getting at writing pop songs. Knights is the moment on a structural level where you're like, not only can Frank Ocean write a perfect. pop song, he can write a complex, daring, unexpected tapestry. Like, to me, that's what Knights is. And it also serves such an important function within Blon because it is the song that separates the albums into the two halves, in my opinion. Like, even Knights, the song, from a very just like structural standpoint, there are, there's version A or side A, side B.

And like, like, text, metatextually, there is like, to me, a side A of blonde and then a side B of blonde. And I think what I love about Knights so much is that what Frank is doing with his delivery, he has a lackadaisical rapping style. And then he's doing a singing style that's tossed off, but it's soft and then melancholic. And the melodies are very sad, but they're bright. And he's going back and forth. What he's talking about, the different versions of nights is fascinating to me. And you have side A where he spins this tale of a toxic relationship. And he's lightly using this metaphor of essentially like working the night shift.

And he's talking about this aching dependency, you know, when he says, working through your worst night, if I get my money right, you know I won't need you. And then there's that jealousy where round your city, around the clock, everybody needs you. No, you can't make everybody equal. Although you got Buku family, you don't even got nobody being honest with you. Because I'll ask you this, Cole. When I'm listening to that, I'm just like, is Frank talking about his lover? Or is he talking about himself? Or is it both?

Yeah, I think it's both because he's, I'm pretty sure this was very much about his time in New Orleans. And him, you know, he ends up leaving New Orleans. for where he grew up, where he had childhood friends for LA. And I feel like this is him having those kind of, I'm outgrowing this city feelings and things around me aren't going the way that I want. I'm trying to take control of my life. I'm in this kind of shitty relationship. I'm ready to leave.

Like that's kind of the feeling that I get from night. So I think it's, I think he's like he often does, uses the relationship to say something larger or get at something larger. And that's what I, because like side B to your point is then very autobiographical. It is about Frank leaving New Orleans after the hurricane. Right. So it is like this song, what is genius to me is that he's talking about himself and his struggles with leaving a place and that nostalgic feeling.

And if we go back to what we've been saying this entire season, what I think is so interesting about blonde as a project is that it almost fits very neatly in that cliche. sophomore album concept of I finally got everything that I wanted and it's no longer enough. Like Frank is now the star. Frank has become an R&B singer. He's been nominated for Grammys. He's done all those things. And Knights gives me that feeling and a lot of this album gives me that feeling of I was running from my childhood. But I think my childhood is the thing that I want and I can't have it anymore. And that to me is what is so special about blonde,

because to your point of what you were saying, it is very much an album of reflecting and on your past at your present moment. And I think that Knights does such a beautiful job of it. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because if you look at the first half of the album as the childhood portion, the summer portion, the, you know, most of the songs on the first half are very warm and represent I feel like the childhood.

And then you get the division of nights, not only within the song itself, it's this transformation of from New Orleans to L.A. or this move, this big event in his life, which if you're thinking about Frank's life, the move to L.A. probably symbolizes for him the end of his childhood.

If he's moving away from, you know, where he grew up and away from his friends and family, that's the most, that's like the inciting incident in the Frank Ocean story. Yes. This move to L.A., and then ushers him into adulthood and all the stuff that we hear on the second half of the album.

It really, to your point, it just, it quite literally draws a line of, you know, divides the album in half into these two sides. And yeah, it's beautiful. I have a conspiracy corner. This triggers my conspiracy corner, but I want to make sure that you got to say what you wanted to say about Knights. The last thing I'll probably say about Knights, a song that I love and is like easily, I think, the most popular off this album, is that what I think is what we've already kind of talked about, is that Knights also is a song where he's touching upon the struggles that he's facing now, where he's the first person in his family probably, that has this amount of money.

And there is no one around him who's being honest. But what is interesting about that, the duality, is that the way he sings it and a way a lot of the songs around nights operate, this is how he feels about everybody else. This is how he feels about the people that he is dating. He feels like no one, like when we're going to talk about it later, a lot of the songs he feels like the people that he's dating grew up on different advice. They're not saying what they should to his face. They're being fake. And this has a dichotomy of it where Frank is starting to doubt like, am I also that type of person in my opinion? Like, now that I'm trying to get out and I'm trying to escape.

And like as we know, part of what influences this album is somebody called, is a friend calling him to talk about what it was like in New Orleans. So we know this is autobiographical, at least a lot of it is. So it's just interesting how Frank sets himself as the narrator or as the protagonist of his own story. Because it is very rare for an R&B artist or a rap artist around this time. to be talking about themselves with this much transparency. Because if you listen to my point,

if you listen to Drake, nothing is ever Drake's fault. Like when you listen to Drake's, like literally nothing is. Everything around Drake is happening and he's just like a, he's just like, how could y'all do this to Drake? And Frank is like the rare R&B singer

who is just like, what is also my role in this? Which I find fascinating. But conspiracy corner. So before, well, it has to do with the B. switch but do you remember the first time you heard the beat switch transcendent levit like and that's why I also think that you know me I think I am very harsh on beat switches yeah as a thing like it drives me

crazy like when baby keem does that shit like I come around I'm a baby team fan now I like baby keem oh okay big revelation yeah but I'm not a like the beat switch has to be so good and has to to work. And the second beat that comes either needs to be just as good sonically or thematically just as important for me to give a shit. And I think the beat switch on Knights is the rare one where I'm like, the song actually does not work without this. Yeah. That's an interesting thing about Knights because the first and second halfs on their own, if their own songs aren't actually that strong to me. The good, don't get me wrong. But the brilliance of Knights is that the whole makes is better than the sum of its parts.

And so one of my favorite things to do still to this day is go on YouTube, look up first reaction videos for Blonde, which I did in preparation for this and watch people freak out for the beat switch. Because it's so crazy, like the guitar solo, you're just like, what the fuck is going on? And then, like, the most brilliant thing about that beat switch is I don't think it works without that little reversed bass drum that go the little sound. you know, when it kicks in, it's like, boom, like, you take that away and that beat switch is like vastly doesn't, it doesn't work like quite as well to me.

Anyways, okay, so Kevin, cue my music. This is Cole's Conspiracy Corner. This is where I try to pitch Charles on my most outlandish musical conspiracy and he tells me if I'm full of shit or not. So we'll start with the basic. The conspiracy corner is not that the beat switch divide. blonde perfectly in half. I think that is well established. It's a thing. Blonde is 60 minutes long almost to the second. The beat switch in nights divides the album perfectly in half to the second. That's a thing. Okay. So but I feel like we get caught up in that one thing and don't really

respect all the other permutations of the duality theme and motif throughout this project. So I'm going to hit you with just a bullet point. list of all the ways that I at least figured out how he explored this idea of duality. So you know there's two spellings. Do you know the two spellings, blonde versus blonde with the E? Do you know about that with the title?

Yes, but clarify for the listener. Okay, so blonde, there's two versions of the album. Sometimes it's spelled with an E. Sometimes it's spelled without any. I saw three. I was looking, I was researching. Some people think there's three with blonde it.

Oh, interesting. okay well anyways because that blondeed radio we know like right oh i got the blondeed shirt on right now um but it's paid way too much for but okay so blonde versus blonde with an e in french these are the spellings in french and one is masculine and one is feminine so he's definitely doing that um one thing that i thought about which i don't know if it's true but in terms of like you know kids are often born with blonde hair and then that it gets darker as they age my my youngest daughter had bright bright blonde hair now it's darker so i thought that's very fitting of an album that goes from childhood to dual adulthood that is titled blonde the album structure thing of course

60 minutes nights beat switch divides it perfectly in half we get the day we get the night portion of the album we get the childhood versus adulthood portion of the album divided perfectly into two 30 minute parts so that's the album structure is around duality both sides if you count nights as two songs as if the first half belongs on side A and the second half belongs on side B. Both sides, both 30 minute halves have exactly nine songs. So there's symmetry there. But also here's something that I don't think a lot of people know. Both Nike's or all three, Nike's, Knights and Futura two are free. The first, middle, and last song on the album are also divided in half. Nike's has two distinct halves, the one with his high-pitched up voice and then it transitions into the guitar part

with his natural voice. Knights, we just talked about clear division. Futura Free is divided perfectly in half by silence. And so you have these micro expressions of the duality structure within the very beginning, very middle, and very end of the album. So perfect symmetry there. And then the real conspiracy corner is this and it has to do with Futura Free because I don't you're not picking Futura Free out right? I'm not. I like the song a lot. Okay. So I had to sneak this in there because I didn't think it was but it has to do with this. So Futura Free is divided perfectly in half. There's silence that enter that's the gap of silence that enters the song happens exactly to the second halfway between in the song. The last thing that we hear on the album is a key.

kid asking how far is a light year? He asks it twice and then the album ends. That's the last thing we hear on the album. This question, how far is a light year? Charles, do you know how far a light year is? Oh, okay. So a light year is the distance that light travels in a single year. According to astronomers, that is a single light year is 9.4 trillion kilometers. Do you know how long future free is as a song? It is nine minutes and 24 seconds. Do you know that 0.4, 9.4 trillion kilometers, 0.4 expressed as seconds is exactly 24. So the answer to the question, how far is a light ear, is answered by the length of the song, exactly 9.4 minutes long, 9 minutes and 24 seconds. You want to buy it.

You want to buy it. I can see it. I think that Frank could have thought about this. Justin, are you believing this conspiracy corner? This is the rudest thing anyone's ever done to me is bring me in when we're dealing with math. This was not what I signed up for when I said I want to go to school and produce music podcasts.

I didn't really go to school for that. I'm with it. I'm with this one. Yeah, let's rock with it. It's not, here's the thing. it's not a crazy theory. I think Frank is the type of person to do it. It's just like if I have to ask this many questions about it,

that is when I'm a little... And here, just really quick, just for idea's sake, if he did choose to do that, this is like one rung removed from every weed rapper, always making their songs like four minutes and 20s. Like that is like, that is how I view when people do this shit where I'm just like, yeah, okay. All right, we're getting into the court.

well okay we quickly on the night's beat switch thing do you understand how hard it is to make an album exactly 60 minutes long and then divide it perfectly in half with a climactic transcendent moment it's like if that was like if i ever got to talk to frank i would just ask him how he did that because and without sacrificing the album right like it doesn't sound like he did a bunch of shit to make this mathematical thing work. It just, but it's just, it's incredible to me to have that, that ability of craft and I don't know. I just, it's one of those things I'm just like,

how the fuck did he do that? It's, it's remarkable. Can I, can I push back on one thing though? Okay. In regards to that, sorry. I don't know if the audience wants to hear me pushing back on these things, but here I am. When you start to throw in the skits, like his mom and the Facebook story,

you can kind of play with the time a little bit and engineer it if you have the idea Oh do you think that like The original album was coming in at like 50A and he's like all right How can we pad the number? Maybe I'm just saying you know like Those songs because they're just

Little interludes They can be whatever length they need to be And I think Facebook story goes on just a little too long Well I think most of that work The timing work is done actually in future or free, which is why I'm like puzzled about the light year thing, because he throws in silence for kind of no reason or it doesn't need to be there. But there's a gap of silence for how, I forgot how many seconds. But if he was close to the 60 minute mark, he could have played with how much

silence. He could have, the whole montage of kids at the end of the album, he could easily made that longer or shorter depending on, you know, how much. So I think, I think a lot of the work was done with Futura Free. I like this one. I like that. I'm signed up. Knights is my first pick. Love it. Cole, don't go to the one you think we're going to agree on. Go to one you think we'll fight over.

All right. I'm going with White Ferrari. I didn't care to state the plane. Kept my mouth closed. We're both so. Is this on your list? Hell no. I know people like White Ferrari.

Don't kill me, y'all. But like, this is called Last On Standing, guys. Come on. Come on. What are you doing? This song is fucking incredible. It's written perfectly. That's what I will say.

This is a perfectly written song. It is, I mean, this stretch of songs, White Ferrari, SIG-free Godspeed is some of the most transcendent music I have ever heard. And it pains me to even talk about these songs singularly because to detach them from this moment of the album seems like a crime. But White Ferrari, I think out of all three, I chose it because I was having, I needed this part of the album to be represented. And White Ferrari in this single song exercise, I think, represents it well, but also functions

pretty well on its own as a complete thought and a complete song in a typical traditional song way. So I love that it's based around this car. It's just so frank. He talked a lot about cars in that letter. He said, quote, how much of my life has happened inside a car? I wonder if the odds that I'll die in one, knock on wood grain. But he says, we live in cars in some cities, community across space, either for our livelihood or devouring fossil fuels for joy. It's as much, it's close to as much time as we spend in our beds.

And so you can just tell a lot of things in Frank's life has happened inside of a car. We know the channel orange story of him confessing his love to that guy happened inside a car. So I just love that White Ferrari, in terms of a Frank Ocean song, We get the car symbolism, which we just know is really important to him. But of course, it's not just a car. So White Ferrari is also, so the opening line of the song is bad luck to talk on these rides. Mine on the road, your dilated eyes, watch the clouds float, White Ferrari. So not only is this a car or even a trip inside of car, it's a drug trip.

You know, the dilated eyes insinuate that they're on drugs. and white Ferrari is the name of a specific type of ecstasy. It's a white pill with a Ferrari logo stamped on it. So we get the clever kind of double meaning there. Also, it says your dilated eyes, sorry, your dilated eyes, watch the clouds float white Ferrari. So even it paints the image for me, at least, that in the clouds they're seeing a silhouette of a white Ferrari.

So the possible third meaning there, but also white is this, you know, traditional color of purity. And this song takes place when he's 16 years old. And the gist of the song is him dropping this guy off at Central, which is Central City in New Orleans. So we know this happened in New Orleans. And the end of this car ride symbolizes the end of this relationship and both of them sitting in silence knowing that it's the end.

And so it's just one of those moments beginning. This is all happening in the beginning of the song that, I've had things happen like this in cars. You know, I've had hard conversations in cars. And the atmosphere of the song, the minimal keyboard sound and just the atmospheric sounds that come in and out, just puts you in this dream memory, nostalgic quality, drug trip quality, just captures that feeling so well of being inside a car and having a kind of transcendent or important moment in your life happening. And I think the production on like so much of blonde, the production of White Ferrari is so fucking brilliant.

But it's so understated that I don't feel like we appreciate it enough because it is for the most part a single keyboard and then a single guitar comes in at the end or towards the middle. But if you listen in it, especially with headphones, you'll hear these just sounds coming in and out, all these textural ambient sounds that really add to the feeling that you get when you're listening to this track. He had 50 different versions of White Ferrari, he said.

And even his little brother, Ryan, had said, he had heard one of these versions, said, that's the one you got to release. And Frank was like, no, let me get the exact quote. He says, he said, that's not the version because the version, I haven't found the version that is evoking the right feeling. And then John Caramarnica asked a follow-up question and said, what were you chasing?

And he said, quote, they're just chords, just melodies. I don't know what combination of those objects is going to make me how I feel how I need to feel, but I know precisely the feeling that needs to happen. And so White Ferrari, although minimal production-wise, took 50 iterations to get to,

which I think really just tells you the kind of intricacy and perfectionism that Frank was detailing. We take it for granted because it is so minimal, but a lot of thought went into conveying the feeling that we get when we listen to a transcendent in song like white Ferrari, just doesn't happen by accident.

Then we get like the beautiful moment where the guitar comes in and he interpolates the famous Beatles song and said, spending each day of the year. This comes from the Beatles song, Here, There, and Everywhere. And what I think one of the most powerful things you can do by interpolating another person's song, especially a song as famous as The Beatles, is that you extract a single moment.

It's kind of like what he did, and we talked about it with Strawberry Swing. Extract one line that represents not only that song that you're pulling from and giving you a contextual kind of like atmosphere to work that kind of anchors your own original song from, but also allows you to explore that one single line in a way that even the original song didn't explore as much.

And so Paul McCartney's version or song, Here, There, Everywhere, where this, that Frank interpolates is all about wanting someone's physical presence with you all the time, here, there, and everywhere. Frank flips, kind of flips that idea and says, essentially what I think is one of the biggest takeaways from the album is that every person that we've ever loved is actually with us here, there, and everywhere. they are a part of us because that experience with them made us who we are today. And so it's not a physical thing. It's, and no matter how much we try to distance ourselves from some of the people that we've loved, it's impossible. They are here, there, everywhere with us all the time because they're in our emotional DNA. They have shaped who we are.

And I think White Ferrari captures that sentiment. There are a lot of songs on blonde that have that same idea as the anchor. The thematic anchor, but I feel like the feeling that we get of white Ferrari, it's one of the more powerful expressions of that idea. And it's just, this is beautiful. I just, it's just a fucking lovely, lovely song. So you, you remember that part of the letter where Frank references that time that he takes shrooms at Caltech's trip day. And his manager had to come pick him up, essentially. And that part of the letter reminds me of White Ferrari because he said, as I got into the car, I swear to God, the aluminum center console and her Porsche truck looked like it was breathing like the throat of something.

On the freeway leaving Pasadena, we spoke and I looked away outside at the wheels and tires of cars doing the optical illusion thing they do where it looks like they're spitting backwards, which according to Google happens because our brains are assuming something completely wrong and showing it to us. And I think white Ferrari is a perfect example of like Frank simultaneously looking backward and forward and recontextualizing a relationship. Like I assume that this relationship probably is the one he's talking about on Channel Orange. What would you say? I don't think it is. I did the math during the. You did the math?

It's not. Because it's it's he was 16 in the background of the opening line. He says I was 16 or sweet 16. how is I supposed to know anything? So this very clearly grounds us when he was 16. That relationship that he talked about and trying to orange happened when he was 19. Ah.

So this is why I come to you. This is like you did the math. But I do think that this is like an interesting thing about like telling that story of when he's like tripping balls and he's like seeing things on the road. And that feeling like this song gives me that feeling of when you think you are seeing wheels turn one way, but they're actually turning another, and it's your brain messing up.

And I think to your point, we've been talking about it, Blonde is such a record about if the first portion of Frank's career is about him trying to make sense of not only his sexuality, but his childhood and these relationships that form him, white Ferrari almost has that pure feeling of someone kind of coming to some sort of state of understanding about it. And like, I'll ask you this, do you think he could have written this song even a year or two earlier? Like in terms of like in the Channel Orange nostalgia ultra era, I don't know if he could.

In a lot of the songs I hear bits of Channel Orange, I think what really separates the two is the way he develops ideas where in Channel Orange for the most part, he's developing him like a traditional song. His songwriter roots are really showing on Channel Orange. where it's like even a song like Sigfried, you can date that, but he was performing parts of that song live in 2012 and 2012-13 right after Channel Orange.

But then we get the Sigfried that's on the album, and it sounds nothing like those early versions, but the melodies are somewhat similar. So I think in the, and like so much of Frank, during this period between Channel Orange and Blonde, he really reinvented the way that he was developing his ideas. And so you get the classic Frank Ocean beautiful,

melody in a song like white Ferrari and you get the very nuanced you know songwriting in terms of lyricism but the way that the song structured i mean there's obviously no hook at all you get the refrain of white Ferrari which kind of grounds it but you know to go from the ambient synth to a strummed acoustic guitar the Beatles interpolation and then the beautiful climax where he says in this life in this life mind over magic i do magic like but even think about what he says after that if you think about it, it'll be over in no time and that's life. Yeah, exactly. I don't think as an artist, maturity-wise, like, that's a very mature thing to say, where it's nostalgia, alternate channel orange, he's still very much pining for a certain someone, for a time in his life. And white

Ferrari to say, if you think about it, it'll be over in no time and that's life is almost a letting go in a way that you don't hear a lot in the earlier music. He's clawing. He's clawing. he's holding on to this era for dear life and white Ferrari almost feels like i kind of know it's it's gone yeah i mean even and white Ferrari sets off the the run of white Ferrari sigfried godspeed which really culminates in godspeed futura free is like credits rolling on the album to me godspeed is the moment that's the moment of when he says i will always love you and uh you know like that just that expression alone i will always love you that is him coming to to terms with those heartbreaks and learning to let go now that he's found himself. I think that

was the difference between Channel Orange and Blonde is he hadn't really found who he was yet. And so when you don't know who you are, you're really still deeply affected by the things that you feel like were unfair or unjust or broke your heart or whatever. Again, to reiterate the point of blonde, I think is once you found self-acceptance, it allows you to free yourself from the burden of those memories and White Ferrari is part of that pivotal moment of the album. So that's my first pick. Oh, I love this. See, I kind of sold you on it.

Yeah, I sold you on it. I think I like the first half of this album more and I think you gravitate towards the second half. Well, yes and no. I gravitate. I think to me it's very clear White Ferrari, Sigfried, Godspeed is the heart of the album to me. I totally disagree. Okay. Well, then hit me with your next pick because then it's I'm guessing it's in the first half. It is in the first half.

I think that one thing that we don't talk about a lot with blonde, it is a very almost, there are very nihilistic moments to blonde or very sobering moments. If you think about pink and white, he says it's all downhill from here, solo. It's hell on earth and the city's on fire. In hail, inhale, inhale, there's heaven. Or skyline two, summer ain't as long as it used to be.

Every day counts like crazy. Like, the way he's talking about life and love, there is this darker side to it that is a departure to me. It does not sound like strawberry swing. Even when he got darker in the past with a swim good or a pyramid, there was still this type of hopefulness. And I'm not saying that there's not any hope. on blonde there obviously is because he is coming he is coming into his own we see that to your point in songs like white ferrari or godspeed but i think i love the first half of this album so much because there is that tinge of the way i thought my present would work out is not actually how it did and

one of the songs that i think does it the best is ivy i thought that i was dreaming when you said you love me Are you going to kill me for likeing I'm going? Are you going to kill me for liking Ivy? Okay, I like Ivy. It's a beautiful. It's a great, great, great, great, great song. Make the case for it. Then I'll tell you my thoughts.

So I think the lyric that anchors this song is one of the most important lyrics on all of Vaughn and one of the most important lyrics to understanding Frank at all. is when he says, I ain't a kid no more, will never be those kids again. Yeah, that's, yeah. The fact that you say that on the second song off your project, when quite literally everything we know that comes at before this is, no, I want to be those kids again,

or I'm trying to understand why it was so special that moment. To me, that is, like, that is this album. And I also think Ivy does a better job than Nike's. and I like Nikes, of almost giving you a crash course of what this album is going to be, because Ivy goes in so many different directions, whether he's pitching up his voice, distorting his voice, stretching his voice. It sets up the palette, the tone of this album and the weird collages of memory and of different viewpoints happening of the same incident or the same memory. and if we're talking, we always kind of talk,

we talked about it last episode about Frank Ocean's openings. Yeah, one of the best of all time. To your point, the opening line's a perfect lyric, like absolutely perfect lyric. But then to twist right away and say the start of nothing and you just understand the entire song just off those two lyrics. Does that, the, yeah. To me, like, that's why I think,

that this song has to be on any, like, best blonde out, like, song conversations. Because if you take Ivy out, like, the album kind of falls apart in terms of you, understanding where Frank is coming from in terms of, like, how he is viewing his past. I think also just the metaphor of Ivy and of this thing that grows out of control and is a pest and even how he ends the second verse. You ain't a kid no more will never be those kids again. It's not the same.

Ivory's illegal. Don't you remember. When he says, ooh, I can hate you now. It's all right to hate me now. But both know that deep down, the feeling still deep down. Deep down.

Good. That is the, that's the whole album. And then when he does the, he goes into the fall of seto. Oh, the things I didn't mean to say. Yeah.

I didn't need to do. There were things you didn't say. Did you mean to? Me to. And then he repeats that. that like super jarring and just, I've been dreaming of you. And he can towards these, like, for the longest, I didn't even know what he was talking about,

but that feeling that, oh, like, it just hits you. And I think that that is actually what, like, a good album does, where it's like, at first, Nike's is so jarring. But if you surrender yourself to the project and you listen to Ivy right after it, you're like, okay, he's deconstructing what we understand him as an artist to be. and he is like that is to your point the line that you just read the feeling still deep down is good how much of this album is frank playing with the idea of what is truly bad for me and what of the

things that I'm feeling that might still be negative still feel good like can those two things coexist. These little dualities come up almost in every song where it's like, yeah, he directly juxtaposes, I could hate you now, you could hate me now, but the feeling's still good. These, these feelings coexist and that's fine and it's kind of beautiful. I mean, even when we talk about the, when we talk about stupid, lazy, unconcerned, like even think about how much of this album is about the highs of love, of Frank Ocean, of the drugs. Like, he's referencing white Ferrari. He's You have the mom talking about marijuana. You have all of this stuff.

And then you have the come down always, most of the time in the same song. And that's what I love about Ivy is that he's telling us we're never going to be those kids again. But then he's following it up. Like by the end of song, he's like, yo, but the feeling still good, still great, still hits people. That's why I have to choose Ivy. I also, this also might be because of its placement on the project. but I'm looking right now. That's the most streamed song, right?

Except pink and white. Pink and white on Spotify at least is at 817 million. And Ivy is at 605. Yeah, it's close. I love Ivy. I'm not going to shit on it. It's just in this song exercise, the way that I've been trying to help whittle down my choices

because I can make a case for like half the songs on the album. Ivy to me, in this exercise exclusively, I don't know if it showcases enough of who Frank Ocean is. I feel like in some ways it could kind of almost be on Channel Orange. And it doesn't quite show me enough of the experimentation. It's a pretty traditional song structure, which I get actually kind of, you can make a case. It does have the weird song structure, though. I mean.

Or maybe not the weird song structure, but it definitely does have. the outro, what he's doing with his voice. Oh, I know, I know, I know. The competing vocals, like, it is like, this is not a straightforward. No, I know. It shows some of that. I just like, does it show it enough? And is it too traditional to represent Frank?

That's where I was like skeptical about it in this exercise. But you could also say those things in a positive light to make the case for it, that it is something you can put on a playlist. It functions everywhere. It's a, you know, it transcends all setting. things. So, you know, but that's, that's my, maybe that's just my personal preference showing through because I like, I tend to like the more experimental stuff. But beautiful pick. I think that's a great pick. All right. Where are you going? Let's not agree. Don't pick some we're going to agree.

I'm pick something I'm going to hate. All right. I've been torn between two songs as my, I have my one that I'm saving for the end. That's the one I'm stumping hard for. I've been debating between solo and Sigfried. I know Sigfried has the hearts of many diehard Frank Ocean fans. It is a phenomenal, phenomenal song.

It has all the experimentation that I love. I've been on the fence about it because when you pluck it out as a single song, does it work outside the album? It does, but it's such a integral part of the album that even just talking about it outside the context of the album,

even pains me to think about. Solo, kind of contrary to what I'm saying, was saying about Ivy's, does function very well as a single song, in my opinion. Does better on the duality front, I think as well as a song. It does. It also shows the Frank Ocean experimentation that I love.

It also, I'm going to go, let me just go ahead, pick my, I'm going to pick solo. Hand me a towel, I'm dirty dancing by myself, gone off tabs of that acid, for me a circle, watch my jagger. Might lose my jacket. You had, dude, I'm so, I didn't want to, like, tip the scales, but, dog, he opens this

song saying, hand me a towel, I'm dirty dancing by myself, gone off tabs. Like, it's, this song is so good, bro. How could you not think so? It's so cool. It's such a cool song. Again, like, because the instrumentation of it is so weird, right? It's like just an organ through the whole song, but he's rapping over it, which is, for me, I love when rappers

wrap over a single instrument, preferably piano. A rapper just over solo piano to me is like gold. And it's not done enough. Anyways, that flow the cadence he finds over a solo organ is so cool, so unexpected,

so frank, like no one else is doing this. Structurally, it's really interesting because it's two long verses, but within the two long verses, you get four like vignettes and all of them end with this idea of himself. saying solo. And every time he says solo, the meaning changes. So just to give you a few examples,

solo to your brilliant recreation there, dancing on drugs, him dancing solo, expressing this freedom. The next time he says it, it means being single. The next time he says it's in and out of a relationship. We don't have to be solo. The other time he says it rolling solo, it means independence, but also rolling a joint. He's talking about smoking weed on that one. And then he flips it to a solo punch, don't catch a solo. And then when you're talking about the custody battle, it's about solo is about custody, a solo custody. So it's just super clever, super Frank, to just take this one word and just create a kaleidoscope around it of all these different meanings. Also, we get the clever solo instrument of a single organ, solo instrument. Also, we get the

homophone of so low, which I think Andre explores more than Frank does, but we do get the, I'm so low, I'm so down. We get that double meaning there. So just cool, lyrical stuff. But then, fucking A, dude, the chorus. We get to the chorus. Perfect course. Perfect. And the contrast between the wrapped flow and him just belting out,

it's hell on earth and the city's on fire. Inhale, in hell, there's heaven. It's hell on earth and the city's on fire. Inhale, inhale, there's heaven. There's a bull and a mad at a dawdling in the sky. Hell in hell there's heaven.

We get the duality, the heaven and hell. Dog, how beautiful of a line is there's a bull and a matto? Oh, I'm getting there. I got some stuff there. Before we even get there, before we even get there, inhale, inhale, there's heaven. So inhale is implying drugs, inhale, contrasting with heaven, finding moments of heaven while you're in hell, the duality of life, suffering joy. It's all right there. And then most artists would say.

say, shit, I just wrote one of the best lines I've ever going to write my, I'm going to repeat this. But no, he says, there's a bull and a matador dueling in the sky, inhale, and hell, there's heaven. Just imagery-wise, one of the most brilliant lines I've ever heard, perfectly capturing this duality theme. It's evoking the constellations of the sky, Taurus being a bull, Orion being a matador. And so we get conflict. The way that I read this is like conflict is built into the cosmos. This duality I'm talking about throughout the whole album is built into the universe. This is an undeniable fact of life in the universe is these contrasting conflicting energies.

It's right there in the stars. And just it provides a metaphysical element to this song that I think is captured throughout blonde specifically on the second half. There is something metaphysical about this album. something it captures an atmosphere that just music so rarely captures and that line is just I don't know it's so brilliant but also that's not even my favorite part of the song my favorite part of the song is what he does after which I think he says war I'm not sure if he's singing war or oh but he goes on that beautiful vocal no it's the oh and he like it's building and then

he's saying solo like there's there's voices and then he does Does the high pitch. But he does the vocal run. And then he hits the high falsetto at the end does the vocal run. And it fucking just breaks me every single time. I don't know if you get shit in the gut, bro. Do you get chills when you listen to music? Yes.

This is the part where I wasn't going to pick solo, but I think if I'm picking like top five moments from blonde, this moment that you're talking about where he goes on the vocal run, he does the falsetto, his voice is saying solo. and it's building a lot of this album they were saying like was um was inspired by the beach boys and the way that you know they would they would layer a lot of their music and this is the best example to me of frank using his voice as an instrument yeah in this very weird way because also it's funny because like i'm assuming that the person doing the vocal runs and the person doing the ad libs and everything is frank on a song called solo and i'm like normally you might get a

chorus, you might get somebody else, you might get backup singers, but him just layering his voice on solo, it's so many different ways is just so genius. It's just, and it works outside the aisle. I think you can, obviously, it's maybe not, it's a certain kind of playlist, but it's a complete thought is a complete song. It's something you can. I think it's fair to take it outside of the context of the album. It's, and it represents Frank so much because we do get the the wrapped style of the verses, which I think even post blonde is something that he's been exploring a lot more, is that more rap delivery. But then we get the beautiful voice and that the vocal run that only Frank Ocean can do. Like you, you have smartly pointed out that technically Frank's voice doesn't have the

range, the technical, I can hit this many notes range of like the weekend. But the, the magic of Frank's voice, what he's able to do with a more limited range, he has great range, but it's like it's not as it's not going to bullet like the range is it's not maria carrier range right like even like somebody like a jeremiah like we've we've listened to like a jeremiah or like a miguel they are more classically trained singers but what i would say is sometimes an artist having that many tools almost limits them in a way where it's because frank has a more limited range to work with he finds more inventive ways to stretch his voice to do the runs to layer it in a way that like you're not going to hear this in a weekend song like there's never

I'm sorry the weekend has never made a song that is as creative as solo I'm just being real and I like that weekend yeah that's totally fair um so I feel good about the pick I'm glad that you're into it too shout out of Sigfried though I want to give Siegfried some love Sigfried I was by fuck that six free it's a masterpiece it's a fucking masterpiece but anyways let's move on go over before we go to a quick break round one you pick white I pick Knights. Round two, you pick solo. I pick Ivy. I'm feeling good when we come back. We have one more song to do. But let's go to a quick break. Make sure you stay tuned. All right. We're back. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for crack rock takes. I only have one this time. Oh, okay.

Justin, are you there? I am here. What's up? This is a perfect time to do this crack rock take because I'm going to be talking about the second solo off this album, solo reprise. And my crack rock take is that Andre 3000 has the best Drake diss of this entire era. Oh, God, yes. Well, wait, what do we say by era? Because I actually listened to story of Adidon the other day randomly because I just do that. So that's not this era.

Okay, I just wanted to clarify. Okay. This is pre-story of Adidon. This is around the time where Drake is beefing with Meek Mill. You have Kendrick with King Kunta. You have a bunch of people being like, yo, Drake doesn't write his own lyrics. Yes. And most of those disses just,

did not do anything. They were fucking fine. I find Andre 3000's verse on this so funny because let's play a little, we can play a little bit of it. After 20 years in, I'm so naive I was under the M. Pressing that everyone wrote their own verses that's coming back different and yeah, that shit hurts me. I'm humming and whistling to those not deserving. I stumbled and lived everywhere was I working just way too hard. Basically what Andre 3000 does is he is the elder statesman. He is the uncle that just is so hurt. He is so let down by someone who goes unnamed, but feels like is Drake. And I'm just like, I never in my adult life ever want to be the person that let Andre 3000 down, you know? It feels so earned when Andre 3,000 says this, right?

Like, it feels different from Andre saying this versus Meek Mill saying something about Drake not writing, right? Like, it feels like you said, like he let him down, but also just this idea, like, how hard does Andre work to his craft? And then to just be like, these fucking kids, man, this guy. So now it's time for our third song And I'm almost positive we agree on this one Do you want to say it? Can I say it please? You can say it

Self-control Hell fucking yeah Let's fucking go I'm so glad we agree on this song Because this song Sickfried's a masterpiece There's a lot of masterpiece songs This fucking song dude

Is probably in my top Easily top 10 songs of all time Maybe makes the top five this song is just it's one of the songs I'm going to talk about it I don't even like talking about it it's transcendent it words will only get there's a famous quote music begins where you know language ends

this is that song to me like this expresses everything that you can't say in words particularly the second half but let me let's just go okay hold on you picked it too so let me give your opening remarks about self-control. So I hadn't thought about this until we were doing the exercise. This has always been a song that I loved. But if we like zoom out about blonde and we think about the project and how it was made, so many of the creatives were like, I gave Frank this verse or this melody or this idea so many years ago. Or he would send us all to different rooms and we would noodle and we would play and then

Frank would take it and leave and you would never hear about it again. And most of those creatives only heard the finished product when the album was out. That tells you the amount of control that Frank Ocean likes to have over his art, his music, and his life. So what does it tell you about Frank Ocean the human when he is quite literally making a song about the idea of losing control, especially of losing control within a relationship? and that dichotomy is so interesting to me because he makes this perfect, perfect piece of art,

this album, this song, by being so controlling and so exacting about the process of everything. And self-control is an entire song built on the idea of what happens when another human being that you have fallen in love with robs you of that self-control, robs you of that part of yourself.

And I'm just like, that's why this is genius because I'm like, that takes a real artist to talk about something about themselves that is probably the thing that they talk to their therapist about. That's why I love self-control. Yeah, it's, I mean,

we're talking about iconic opening lines. Holy shit, I'll be your boyfriend in your wet dreams tonight. Like, absolutely perfect. And it gets, and he follows it up again with an equally brilliant line. For my money, the most beautiful poetic line ever said about cocaine.

He says, noses on a rail, little version wears the white. And it's just like, how many ideas are in this, this couplet? You know what I mean? Like, we get everything that we need to know about this relationship right away. We get this fantasy, the wet dreams, Frank's in love. They're doing drugs together, but also the way that he words, noses on a rail, little virgin wears the white. Like he's evoking purity, innocence.

We know that this is an early relationship. It's so frank to give you using the word choice. is to convey multiple ideas and give you the impression of what he's talking about more than, oh, I understand what that line means. No, I understand how that line makes me feel a certain way. And so he's talking about cocaine and being young, but also it's just so poetic and beautiful that you just can't be helped but just be enamored by this. So you're already sucked in just in the first two lines. We get, you cut your hair, but you used to live a blonde in life. Let me ask you this, actually.

Do you think he says Blonded Life or Blinded Life? This is a much debated thing here. I think he says Blonded life. That's what I hear too. But a lot of people argue for blinded. You know, that just the opening verse

is just masterful on every level. The lines are, you know, he continues saying, wish I was there, wish we'd grown up on the same advice, and our time was right. Which is just so much of life and relationships. And I think that more macro

perspective that Frank has found on this album is said right here where you with time and maturation you understand that most of the time when things don't work out with someone else they might have worked out five years later or five years earlier so much of who we choose to be with in this life has to do with who we are when we met them the timing's right you know sometimes we love these people but we're just different spots at our life we want want different things. It's not about the actual person. It's just about the mix of the two at that time just isn't going to allow you to flourish, isn't going to allow you to fully bloom. And just to sum that feeling up and that

understanding and that insight into one single line in this verse, it's just so beautiful. And then it sinks into the chorus. He says, keep a place for me. I'll sleep between y'all. It's nothing. So it's like, it's so beautiful it gives you the image of this this person that he likes being with someone else but also wanting to be with them so much that you actually don't care about the other person as long as you're also there with them and this actually was inspired by what frank said is his favorite song of all time which is princes when you are mine so in that song we maybe we can play a little bit of it here he says i never was the kind to make a fuss when he was there sleeping in between the two of us. I know that you're going with another guy. I don't care because I love you. Which is just like, again, Frank pulling from his favorite song, capturing that emotion of just wanting to be with someone, the presence of someone, even if they got other things going on. And then we get the, like one of my favorite lines on the album, I came to visit because you see me

like a UFO. That's like never because I was made, because I made you use your self-control and you made me lose my self-control. which is just Can we just talk about vocally what he does there? Yeah. And how pained and strained

and just the way he delivers made me lose my self-control. That is another chills moment of the album. Because like we said, Frank Ocean is limited as a in terms of his range

but not in terms of how he emotes. And when I listen to Frank, I'm just like, oh, no, I felt that moment. When he said, you made me lose my self-control. I'm just like, that is a moment that grips you so tight and draws you into the story. Oh, man, continue.

But that, the ending of that. Yeah. Well, okay, so then it's like, this is the thing he does on this album over and over again. Just the guitar part of the song, he could have ended it right there, right? Like, he could have just, we would have loved self-control. It's a complete thought. It's a complete song on its own. Just the guitar part.

But the outro, when the strings come in, like they swell in. And then he does the wordless, high pitch distorted melody thing. And the strings are going before he comes in with the I, I got to leave, leave, leave, leave. Like that moment is, no, I'm not exaggerating one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.

The strings were composed by John Bryan, one of my favorite producers and musicians of all time. It is such, again, this is like, I can't even describe it. There's no describing what I feel. that moment to me, that stretch of 20 seconds or whatever it is, that is exactly why music exists. That is exactly the moments that I chase in music. That is why I love music so much is because of moments just like that. It's fucking phenomenal.

I don't, you know what I'm talking about, right? Like, I don't even, I can't even describe it. I mean, I also just love the little, I believe it's Frank's voice who sang it, the pitched up almost. it sounds like a Kanye chop. Yeah, yeah. It's like the comeback of Leah, that part. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah.

Also, it's just like, there's so many little parts of self-control that to your point, like, this was already complete statement, and then he adds one more thing. And that one more thing just opens the song up all over again. Exactly.

It's just, I didn't, I didn't think you would have liked self-control. I was surprised. I didn't think you were going to pick this. Dude. Okay, so he had that beautiful moment. How do you even, like, in my,

mind, I'm like, how do you even follow up a moment as beautiful as that? And then he fucking somehow he does. He comes in with one of the most memorable parts of the entire album, the I, I, I know, you've got to leave, leave, leave, take down some summertime, give up just a night, night, night. That melody is phenomenal. It's absolutely phenomenal. It's sing-songy, but it's not corny. It's like, I don't know. And everything that builds to that moment makes that moment, right? Because, again complete song in the guitar part the beautiful strings how do you follow it up somehow he does with this anthemic a frank ocean version of anthemic part and then the song just ends on this brilliant high it's a song form called terminally climactic song form which is means like it's a verse chorus

verse chorus but then when you get to what you think is the bridge that actually becomes an extended climax and you never return to the verse or chorus if you think about the Beatles, Hey Jude does that. Radiohead's Karma Police does that. It's a really effective song form. It's really hard to pull off because you have to keep topping yourself every step of the way, which Hey Jude and Karma Police does. It's like the verse chorus has to be strong, but then you have to take it to another level to this terminal climax at the end and carry the song all the way to the end. He does that with this anthemic, beautiful, you know, the words are beautiful, everything about the end of this song,

it's my favorite moment on the album. It's some of the best music I have ever heard. I don't know. I can't remember it clearly, but it's always been the song I've gravitated to ever since I listened to Blonde. I wish I can remember listening to it for

the first time, but I can't. But it's just fucking beautiful. I mean, I also like this song because as deep as it is, it's also a very it is a very relatable song if you're at a point in your life where I think Frank is

where it is this like I was I listened to self-control in this album at a point in my life where I had to hit the dating scene in New York similar to probably Frank and this was also like I've had times like this where I'm just like you're like the third person in the relationship

and I've never been the person to be like oh there's room for me here but I've always spent I'm just like, why am I here? What do I like? Like, why am I letting this person do this to me? Like, why am I carrying on like this? And that is what, Frank, that's how it feels.

And I also like, if you think about it, the belief that you have to have in yourself as an artist to seed the floor for what I think is probably one of the most beautiful parts of your album, which is the chorus, the Austin Feinstein Young Lean chorus of Keep a Place for me. I'll sleep between y'all. It's nothing. where Austin and Younglein's voice aren't as beautiful or I think as iconic and I love Younglein as Frank. But what they do is they almost let somebody else vocally into this relationship, which also makes it. Kind of also reflects that third person in the relationship, right? Yeah. Yeah.

And that's what like that's why I like their inclusion into this because some people think of like a chorus. I'm like, I'm going to have somebody deliver a chorus for a specific reason. When you have a rapper or a singer, there's a reason that you would get a Beyonce or a tailor a weekend to deliver something. Frank is using this feature to say something thematically about this song, about how it feels to have another body in this relationship and feel like I'm the third wheel. I'm trying to squeeze myself in. I don't know.

Self-control. Yeah. is just self control is so fucking good. It's like, yeah, it's transcendent. Like, I don't use that word lightly, but it's, uh, it's fucking special, dude. So we both agree on self-control. Let's, let's regroup. We so far, Cole, you have white Ferrari solo, and we both have self-control.

And I have Knight and Ivy. Now that we've made our case for what songs from Blond are in contentioner, Frank's best of all time, it's time to pick, man. Before we do that, I just have to say, this exercise was torture. Listen to the songs we left out. Nike's, great song. Pink and white. I know you have hot takes about that.

It's a good song. Not my favorite song. I'm not picking whatever the TikTok teens. No, fuck all I. It's a beautiful song. But yeah. We talked about, okay, Skyline 2, one of the most underrated songs on this project. It's beautiful.

It's underrated, but it's also perfectly rated. if we're going to be honest. I could have made a case for it. I really could have. Yes, I really could have. Sinkfried, we talked about a bunch. That could have easily been one of my picks. Godspeed. Godspeed should have been on this list. That's actually what I'm mad about. If I, like, I think Godspeed, it's weird that we don't have Godspeed a little bit. Okay. I was really tortured about leaving Godspeed off because it's the moment that makes me cry on the album, like just snap at the fingers. I got tears of my eyes when he says, I will always love you. What it misses for me in this exercise specifically is that when you remove. move it as a song, stand alone. It just falls a little

short in terms of length, in terms of structure. It kind of of just, you know, the second half of the song is meandering in a good way, but it kind of meanders. There's not a lot of structure to it. You know, the heart of the song is those opening, that opening minute. And it kind of tapers off. But it's this beautiful

again, it's like... But it does not mean much if you have not gone through the full journey. Exactly. Exactly. So it's like, in this specific exercise, I had to leave it off for those reasons, but it's one of my favorite moments on the music, or moments on the album, for sure, one of my favorite songs. But yeah, again, just, just this is, this is where the exercise itself falls short because you can't include a song like that. Here, we're going to do

something new. I think we both know that one of us is going to pick self-control. I need it. I will name the song that I'm thinking of nominating. I would go with knights in terms of like, one of us is going to have to pick self-control, and I'm assuming you are going to go white Ferrari. If you picked self-control? Yes. If I picked self-control, you would probably go white Ferrari, and if you pick self-control, I would go Knights. I think Knights has to be on there over White Ferrari, I will say, even though I didn't pick Knights.

Do you think they're going to kill us, though, if we don't have White Ferrari? And this comes from someone who's like, I like White Ferrari, but it's not my favorite joint. Justin, come in here real quick. Yeah, let's hear. Justin, but I think we're going to get killed if Knights isn't on there. Which one will we get killed more for if it's not on there?

Well, I also think that we should bring in Intern Olivia who's sitting. Oh, perfect, yeah. Intern Olivia's back! I personally prefer Knights. So, why? Why? White Ferrari just reminds me

I guess this could be more of a reason to choose it. White Ferrari reminds me of Frank Ocean's first initial music more. And it's probably like my little callback, especially like the title White Ferrari in general. And so I like Knights more because it's shown to me where he is and how he's progressed. But White Ferrarian could also be good to show like how his perspective has changed on some of the same things. So yeah.

So you guys were asking, if what you're more likely to get killed for for leaving off. If we leave it off. Are we more likely to get killed if we leave Knights off or White Ferrari? So taking this into account, what are you going to say, Olivia? I feel like you'd be more likely to get killed if you took off White Ferrari. This is the thing. So here's what you have to consider.

I think more people, I think the average fan, the average person that's like, I've listened to Frank Ocean like 20 times in my life, likes Knights more. the people, and I think the people who are that were the type of people to tune into what is the Frank Ocean's best song ever podcast are screaming right now that you're not picking White Ferrari. I think that's the difference.

I think the average person would think Knights is a better song. I think that the Frank Ocean diehards, the people on the Frank Ocean subreddit, the people that, you know, we know the types. I think that they're going out of their mind at white Ferrari possibly not being picked.

So I think, okay, see, here's what I think, and I'm, I don't really care because I'm picking self-control. It has to be picked, but I think the popular choice would probably be white Ferrari and knights being picked and self-control being left off. Here's the thing. You know what I'm going to pick knights? Because here's the thing. I want to pick self-control.

You can pick self-control. I'm going to pick knights because if people love fucking white Ferrari, they should. That's what I was good. Yeah, it's a perfect segue. They should vote for it. It's a perfect segue because the fans get a vote. So let's formalize our pick and then we'll tell them, remind them again about their vote. So I'm going self-control.

You're going self-control. I wanted to go self-control too, but I'm happy settling with Knights. I'm totally fine with that. If you want White Ferrari in here, I think you got to vote for it. That's just what we're doing. Or even, I can see, I can see Ivy. I can see Ivy getting. Here's the thing.

I like Ivy. I do. But that was more of like, I don't like, I would rat. I think Knights is a better version of Ivy just in terms of like the popular song off the album that everyone likes. Whereas like with White Ferrari, I'm trying to think of like,

hmm, we need more of the like real Frank heads like this shit. But the real Frank heads have to show up in the fucking polls. Yeah. That's just what they have to do. And Siegfried even might get a lot of votes too. Don't underestimate Sigfried.

But I think I'm really happy we landed with self-control and knights. I think that makes perfect sense. I can stump for either of those songs in the finale next week. very hard. So I think we, I think we did good and I'm very looking forward to seeing what the fans vote. Again, you can go to At Dissect Podcast on Twitter or Instagram to vote. We'll take a tally of all of them. So it doesn't matter where you vote. I'm really excited though. Hell yeah. And with that, yo, can you tell the people out there, Cole, who makes this podcast? Yeah, shout out to Justin Sales and Olivia. Audio production by Camapooler, theme music by bureaucratic. Penultimate episode, man. Are you looking forward to the finale? No. Fucking destroyed. No matter what we pick, it's just going to...

Actually, now, I don't even know what the song is going to be. I don't either. Like, I really... This is actually the first... With the Kendrick one, I was like, I have like two or three in mind that I'm like, this is what I'm stumping for. For the frank one, I'm just like, you can sway me on the final episode to pick any. Yeah. Oh, I'm so excited. All right. We are back with our cultural exchange. change. Cole, can you please tell people what were the two pieces of music that we exchange with one another to try to convince each other to expand their powers a little bit? Yeah, so I assigned you the 20th century atonal classical piece, Christoph Penderecki's Therenity for the victims of Hiroshima.

And you assign me the weekend's debut House of Balloons. I got to, you got to go first. You got to give me the experience of this piece. If this song is what I think this song is about, I had similar thoughts to when I watched Oppenheimer, which is like, respect the swing, respect the artistry,

totally get it. Maybe I have to see it in IMAX, because I don't know if I'm completely vibrant. It was like, I got it. Like, I was just like, I'm not, this is not me saying that the song was bad. I was just like, okay, this is a vibe. I don't know if I'm on it.

This song is very, this might not be the correct musical phrase, but like it's very harsh and discordant. And it feels like a tragedy in audio form, which is not what I was going to expect it. Did you listen to it? Just listen to it? You just focused on it. I followed.

I popped in my head phones. I was just like, all right, for the next nine minutes, nine and a half minutes, I'm going to rock out. And I was like, okay, Cole, don't know what he was on. Definitely scaring this. Like, I was scared. That's what a cultural exchange is all about. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a challenging piece, especially if you're not like, if you don't have the palette for it.

Like, it took me, you know, some months to like really. wrap my head around this kind of music where it doesn't, where the first impression of it being scary or, you know, common first impressions of atonal music, that stuff starts to wear off and you're able to pick out more details and stuff. So I knew it was going to be challenging and just getting over that initial feeling about it. But what I really wanted you to just understand,

I guess, or experience for yourself was one, that classical music can be this avant-garde, could be this out there, right? Like we think of classical music in a certain way. no, that's just one era of classical music. It actually is the most experimental genre, I think there is. But also just the way that classical music, or just music in general,

can give you in a type of visceral kind of experience like this, just with no words, just with instrumentation. Like to me, when you put on headphones and just listen to that, it's a journey. It's a musical oral journey. It takes you somewhere. And so I just, oh, I was on that journey. I went on journey. Okay, so a very dissimilar experience that I had with.

You want to be half for this. How did you like the weekend's house of balloons? Okay. Where do I start with this? I like the weekend. Okay, let me just say I like the, I think there is an undemiable quality to the weekend that's why he's so massive. His voice is just tonally great.

he writes catchy melodies we all know this he's a huge star um house of balloons I've definitely not used to hearing him so raw I'll say the beats were great I liked loved pretty much every beat on this project

I get the appeal of that sounding new and fresh and more I feels like he was more polished out of the gate than the two projects he gave me before it just felt there's a it just was a level up in quality, particularly on the production to me. Again, I think just cheat code with his voice over the, you know, just the tone of it,

maybe not even the range of versus Jeremiah, but like he just has that quality of voice. Where I just can't buy in as the lyrics, dude, just fucking cringe, dirtball, just like, putting in my veins, put it in my fucking veins. Here's the thing.

Justin, are you there? Olivia, are you there? We're here. Are y'all going to kill me for saying, I'm going to be honest, this era of the weekend, probably up to Kissland is the last time I found him interesting, which is why I'm not saying that this music has aged well. I don't know if y'all have listened to House of Balloons recently, but I will say I am still tickled that I'm just like, oh yeah, he was going for it.

Like he was, this is him at his sexy demon gremlin mode that I'm not. I'm just like, I like this. Is this wild Justin and Olivia? Well, I think this, I think this mix tape in particular, it mostly holds up, but that could just be us talking for nostalgic reasons. If I heard it for the first time in 2023, I'd be like, what the fuck? It's definitely a totally different energy. Like we were talking earlier about how the weekend decided he wanted to become, you called him Trader Joe's Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson.

And he very clearly did that. I find this version of the weekend interesting. I find this to be like the most artistically interesting version. But from like a purely musical exercise perspective, I find the after hours blinding nights era not musically fascinating but the fact that he's like trying to create these perfect pop songs I'm actually like

kind of intrigued by that and like with blinding lights he kind of does it it's like the biggest I mean say what you want about the song I don't care for the song one way or the other but it is like it is literally the biggest song in the history of the billboard charts that's interesting

creating the biggest song ever creating the biggest song ever creating the biggest song is legitimately, it's more interesting to do than sampling Aaliyah after Drake ran that into the ground. Stop. We're not doing this. This is not becoming a fucking weekend podcast. I don't like either of them.

How's that? Olivia. In turn, Olivia, have you listened to House of Balloons? I downloaded it to listen on my walk. Walks. What did you think about it? I started it three different times. And each time I would.

finish the fourth song, the one after House of Blues, and just be like, I'm so bored. I am uncomfortable. Yes. Thank you. The lyrics to what you need and hi for this are just, they make me a little

embarrassed. Hi for this is dope. What are we talking about? You're on an island. I'm not on an island. All of these streaming numbers, y'all don't like hi for this. What are we doing? high for this is good

high for this is good no there are a lot of good songs on this album that like I mean what are we doing glass table girls have we have we discussed glass table girls for a second like that is legit

how how Legitably great is good Legitimately great song and it has the perfect scumbag vibe that was what was going on in Toronto in the early 2010s

that you get this guy and you get party next door and you get I don't know who else we get obriob ryan but i don't know if he's a scumbag so much as a you know we y'all didn't like the party the after party what i don't know wicked james i don't know the album enough to know the songs why it's all right it's all right you know what olivia's got my back thank you it's y'all weren't outside olivia how old were you in house of the balloons uh 2011 this comes out in 2011 i was nine see olivia was nice she wasn't outside you know what i

mean. She wasn't trying to hear about the weekend snort and coke all day. Just tell it. You know, it tells me it's just, it's not timeless. So, you know, it is timeless. It's not timeless, clearly. All right, we're going to wrap this up by doing our last cultural exchange. I have one more for you. Yeah, you got to hit me hard because this is the last one, the last of the PBRB syllabus. All right. Justin might disagree with me, but I'm going to give you the album that I think actually ends the PBR&B era because it was so successful

that it just kind of PBM R&B just became pop. It just I think I'm going to go with Miguel's kaleidoscope tree. I think this is the one that ends it. Like this is the one where it's just like, this happens and then I'm just like, no, Miguel, weekend, Frank, you are just stars now. There's no,

it's not the blogosphere anymore. Adorn is such a fucking massive song that all that cute R&B is a rap after this. Is that fair to say, Justin? I mean, it's just such a perfect album. I mean, it's not a perfect album.

I'm sorry. I don't mean it like that. I think it's a perfect album. You think it's a perfect album. Okay, I think there are several perfect songs on there. I think it's very good. And I think that Miguel, it's a perfect album.

I think Miguel hasn't done anything that's touched it. Like the earlier stuff and the later stuff, nothing has touched it. It's a really, really good album with some perfect songs. I don't know. If you asked me in 2012, I might have told you it was a perfect album. I don't know about today.

But it's a great album. I'm underselling it. It's a great album. Cole, Olivia, you haven't heard it? Nope. You've never heard Cladiscope Dream? I'm sure I've heard songs off it. Have you heard a Dorn?

If I heard the song, I'm pretty sure. Because I know Miguel, but I don't know his songs enough or albums enough to say. Wait, you didn't play a Dorn at your wedding? Charles singing. Just let my love adorn you. I played, I played Pender. I played Penderke at my wedding. Okay, so I got to give you what might be, it's between him and Beethoven, my favorite composer, Dmitry Shostakovich.

He's very interesting. He's Russian Soviet Union composer during the 20th century was riding in the time of Stalin. And what's interesting about his story is that he was very, he was heading towards a very experimental trajectory in terms of his music. Stalin himself went to one of his early operas and essentially told Shostakovich if he keeps writing music in this way

because Shostakovus was one of the most famous composers he was a child prodigy, everyone was saying this is the voice of the Soviet Union and Stalin essentially threatened his life and said if you keep writing experimental music like this you're going to disappear one day and so he was put in this interesting place tragic place where he had to constantly write music that he thought was interesting and good

and that he could stand on, but also kind of like past Stalin's test of popularity and accessibility. And so it's just a fascinating. He lived in terror his entire life. He famously put a suitcase, packed suitcase by his door because he was always afraid that just during the night, you know, Stalin's men were just going to come take him away. So the piece I want you to listen to, it's one of my favorite pieces ever. It's his eighth string quartet, specifically the second movement. If you can listen to all of it, great, but the second movement is what I want you to

listen to specifically. Written in 1960, this was written right after he was forced to join the Communist Party, which is something that, again, it was Stalin putting, using Shostakovich as like a public face for his campaigns and stuff, but he didn't want to do it. This was written after he was thinking about committing suicide, and a lot of people see it as his epitaph. He didn't end up committing suicide, but it's just a haunting piece. I think it balances the experimental stuff of Penderaki that you just listen to, and not minimalism, but more traditional classical music. And he balances this really, I think, really compelling line. It's like a rock piece. It feels like a

rock piece is just it's really aggressive and strong but not in a way that's going to turn you off, I don't think. And one cool fact about it is that you'll hear like his repeating four-note motif in there. And that's actually his signature, his musical signature, again, to this idea of him composing an epitaph. He was writing himself in the piece. And yeah, many people see this as one of his greatest piece. It's my favorite piece by him, Shasukovych, eighth string quartet, 1960.

I think you're going to like it. Yes. I can't wait to be very depressed by that. Also, okay, no, sorry, there's a second part of this, right? Because we said that I was going to make you a party playlist for review on the finale. Oh shit, the party playlist is here? Well, I don't have it yet. I have a question about it.

I'm going to make it. You're going to review it and you're going to give our thoughts next time. Do you want this to be my party playlist? Like what I would want to, just me would want to hear at a party? Or do you want me to prove to you that I can make a great party playlist that is accessible? That you would like. Justin, Olivia, come. I need the group.

Kevin, you could even pop in if you would like. I need the whole group to weigh in on this. Because part of me wants to hear what Cole thinks is popular to play at a party. But then the other part of me is just like, if I'm going to Cole's party and he has the ox cord, I want to know what he thinks is like what's going to get the night started off right. which one do you think is more interesting? I think authenticity. I want to hear what Cole would play at his own party,

not what he thinks other people would play at their parties. Hell yeah. All right, we have one for a Cole specific. What about you? Oh, I feel the exact opposite. I was going to say, I feel completely the exact opposite.

You're the DJ. You want to hear if I can make the party go. I want to see if Cole can do this. I think I got the solution. And it's a homage to Knights, or sorry, to blonde. I'm going to make you, two and one. We're going to, I'll divide it. Maybe I can divide in half perfectly, perfectly to the

second, but I'll do side A, side B. I'll do the party playlist that, you know, for the function and I'll do close function playlist. Oh, yes. I've never been so excited to hear anything in my entire time. Then you're going to have to guess where it splits. How about that? All right, that's what we're doing. That's what we're doing. Thank you everybody. All right. We'll be back next week. Peace.