Dissect - S3E18 - Season Finale: Blonde by Frank Ocean

Episode Date: September 25, 2018

We conclude our season-long analysis of Blonde by Frank Ocean. Stay in touch over the break by following @dissectpodcast on Twitter and Instagram. Join the newsletter at dissectpodcast.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Spotify Studios, this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis broken into short digestible episodes. I'm your host, Cole Kushner. Today we conclude our season-long analysis of Blonde by Frank Ocean. On our last episode, we unpacked Blond's final track Futura Free, a song that functions similar to the rolling credits at the end of a film. We find Frank reflecting on the contrast of his life before and after finding success, while droning piano chords and Frank's pitched up voice helped to evoke. and amplify Frank's nostalgic ruminations. y'all honest to god on our previous episode we'd reached the end of the song portion of futura free noting that the full track is perfectly divided in half by the silence that appears

after the song portion and before the closing sound collage of home recordings what's your first memory the first word i learned to say that i ever said what's the most amazing thing you've ever witnessed you got great The source of this sound collage is a recording by the skateboard crew, Illegal Civilization, from North Hollywood, California. The crew is led by Mikey Alfred, and the video features Mikey asking a series of questions to his friends, Nikkel Smith, Sage El Cessler, Evan Clark, Abraham and Nable Hariri, and Frank's younger brother, Ryan Moore.

While we only hear snippets of the answers on Futura Free, the entirety of the interviews are transcribed in the magazine Boys Don't Cry that accompanied Blonde's release. On Futura Free, Frank cuts and pace answers and questions together in a non-linear fashion. The result is what I feel to be a representation or depiction of how we remember, of the active memory itself. When we think back upon our past, we remember in glimpses, fragments of images, impressions of time and place and feeling, but it's rarely completely linear. The sound collage that concludes blonde seems to be structured in this way.

We hear questions posed, and oftentimes the answers that follow don't relate to the asked. Yet, by the end of the collage, we get a general impression of who these kids are and the time in their life it represents. Indeed, the sound collage appears to be a portrait of what Frank views in retrospect as a golden era, or perhaps we should say a blondeed era in life. We recall that in the letter that prefaced the release of blonde, Frank wrote, quote, I don't think I shed a tear for a good chunk of my teenage years. It's surprisingly my favorite part of life so far, unquote. It comes as no surprise then the sound collage that ends the album. Blonde, by his own measure, is in part an autobiography of Frank's youthful years,

and after hearing Frank's memories of this time in his life throughout Blonde, the sound collage on Futura Free is actual footage of teenagers talking, crystallizing one of the album's central themes, the blissful simplicity of youth. Indeed, the answers the interview subjects give to potentially existential questions are void of complication. They're honest and simple and in many ways beautiful because of their honesty and simplicity. For example, when asked, what do you do, we get the blissfully youthful response, I play soccer and go to school. Um, I want to be better at skating. What do you do? I play soccer. In essence, the kid's response is, I'm learning and I'm playing. Isn't that childhood in a nutshell? Of course, beneath the sound collage, we hear the reoccurring theme that's

presented throughout all the interludes on blonde. As you remember, this keyboard passage is sampled from Buddy Ross's running around. This theme works to unify all the interludes on blonde, so it's fitting that we get one last iteration to close out the album. When taken as a whole, we can hear these interludes chronologically as a progression of one's adolescence into adulthood. The first interlude we hear is be yourself, where a motherly figure warns us about losing one's identity through drug use when leaving the house for college. She preaches self-acceptance, categorizing drugs as a detour from who you really are. have gone to college and gotten hooked on drugs, marijuana, and alcohol.

Listen, stop trying to be somebody else. Don't try to be someone else. Be yourself and know that that's good enough. Of course, nearly every song on Blonde references drug use, perhaps most potently on solo, the song that directly follows Be Yourself. It would seem that Frank is arguing, through his own experiences,

recreational drugs can be used as a vessel for, self-discovery, as an act of youthful rebellion through which one finds personal independence. Be Yourself therefore can be viewed as representative of young adolescents in which our parents are guiding principles through life, and that defying them, making your own choices for better or for worse, is a requirement of individualism, an essential part of growing up. From the adolescence of Be Yourself, we moved to teenage years in the next interlude found after the song Good Guy. We hear two guys, presumably teens, talking about women, one guy is heartbroken while the other quietly expresses his disinterest in women,

which we heard as a possible allusion to him being homosexual. Thanks to fuck with all of them. Yeah, I ain't got bitches no more. But now I don't care about bitches like that, my name. That shit. Jasmine fucking wrecked my heart. I don't even know how to feel about it. Here we've progressed from the mother of be yourself.

We've moved out of the house, so to speak. We find two kids trying to make sense of their feelings through somewhat casual conversation, through friendship. At this age, we rarely seek guidance about such things from our parents. Rather, we're trying to figure it out for ourselves. The next interlude is Facebook story. We hear from an older male, perhaps in his mid to late 20s, explaining the dissolution of a relationship because of social media.

I was just telling that I got this girl before, and I was together since three years, and I was not even cheating her or what. And Facebook arrived and she wanted me to accept her on Facebook. And I don't want it because I was like in front of her. And she told me like, accept me on Facebook. This was virtual. It means no sense.

So I said, I'm in front of you. I don't need to accept you on Facebook. She's starting to be crazy. She thought that because I didn't. So we've moved now from the adolescence of be yourself. to the teenage years of the skit that concludes Good Guy, to young adulthood of Facebook Story. Things have gotten rather complicated here on Facebook Story,

as social media throws a wrench into our social behavior and relationship etiquette. It questions the authenticity of our digital selves and the coexistence of the digital and the physical, a coexistence still too new to fully understand. But still, at the heart of this story, is a relationship gone south, a feeling of unresolved and confusion. The final interlude is the sound collage,

on the latter half of Futura Free. We've already discussed this to be a portrait of the blissful freedom of what Frank considers to be the golden years of his life thus far. It works as the album's conclusion, insofar as it represents the mentality Frank has returned to, shedding the complications and commitments of adulthood in favor of the liberated spirit he felt as a teenager. And to fully understand this story arc, this transformation that loosely structures blonde, we have to return to the letter that accompanied the album's release, as it acts as a kind of bloop. for the themes developed throughout the album. The letter is found at the beginning of the magazine Boys Don't Cry that accompanied Blonde's release. Frank also posted the letter on his

Tumblr page the same day Blonde dropped. The letter begins with a description of a photograph that is featured on the back cover of Boys Don't Cry. The photo also appears in the middle of the magazine as its centerpiece, the page in which the physical CD that's included in the magazine is held. The photograph is of a young blonde girl in the backseat of a car. She's configured her two hands together to form a rectangle, which she places over her face so that we only see her eyes. The photo was captured by the Collaborationist, a photography duo comprised of Jessica Hay and Clark Schau. I spoke with Jessica and Clark regarding the origins of this photo, which was taken in the summer of 2010. The girl in the photo is their daughter's friend, who was around 13 years

old at the time. The young girl's mother had just passed away, and they were on a road trip from Los Angeles to attend a memorial service in one of her mother's favorite places, the Death Valley Desert in California. The two girls were in the backseat of the car singing a made-up song, doing hand movements while they sung. It was during this song that the photo was captured. Frank found the photo on Tumblr and licensed it for use in Boys Don't Cry. He describes the photo in the opening of his letter. Quote, two years ago, I found an image of a kid with her hands covering her face. A seatbelt reached across her torso, riding up her neck. and a mop of blonde hair stayed swept for a moment behind her ears. Her eyes seemed clear and calm,

but not blank. The road behind her seemed the same. I put myself in her seat, then I played it all out in my head. The claustrophobia hits as the seatbelt tightens, preventing me from even leaning forward in my seat, the pressing on eternal organs. I leaned back and forward to release it, then backwards and forward again. There it is, I got free." Unquote. In my estimation, this was written with a number of interpretive layers, reflecting the themes and arc of blonde, and by extension Frank's own life and experience. Frank sees her eyes as clear and calm, specifically pointing out that they're not blank. They're at peace, but not unaware, not stupid.

He also describes her blonde hair, of course a direct reference to the album's title. As we talked about on self-control, we might suspect one meaning of the title blonde to be the hair color many Caucasian kids have when they're young but darkens with age. U-melaninin is the melanin type responsible for darkening hair, and for reasons unbeknownst to us, e-melonin increases as we mature. This transition from light to dark, also expressed as day to night on the song's Skyline 2 and Nights, is then representative of the transition between the blonde purity and tranquility of youth and the adulthood complications we face as we age. When Frank He imagines himself as the young girl, which we might interpret him as thinking about his own youth in

general, he draws attention to the seatbelt, describing it as a restricting agent that forcefully keeps him from quote-unquote moving forward, causing claustrophobia. He rocks back and forth twice to unlock the seatbelt, ending with the passage, there it is, I got free. This idea of freedom permeates throughout blonde and seems to be a reflection of Ocean's personal life and experience. We remember that Frank negotiated himself out of his contract with Def Jam, a process he described as a seven-year chess match. He told the New York Times, quote, With this record in particular, I wanted to feel like I won before the record came out, and I did, unquote. Frank used his own money to purchase back his master recordings and release Blonde independently,

allowing him to earn what he describes as Master P-type equity on his music. Liberating himself from what he considered to be a problematic business situation was one. type of freedom. We also recall that post-channel Orange, Frank's life in Los Angeles was increasingly problematic, which he likened to his house being on fire. People had stolen money from him, and he was starting to distrust some of those in his inner circle. So Frank parted ways with his then-management team, left Los Angeles and moved to London, where he worked on new music and traveled. This escape from L.A. was another type of freedom post-channel orange. Finally, we remember that Endless and Blonde were composed in the years immediately following his open.

letter that publicly revealed his sexual preference. The burden of the secrecy, the fear of judgment, and the quote, upkeep on a lie, as Frank put it, weighed heavily on Frank before that letter. He told GQ, quote, but know what fear does to your strength. You don't even feel smart or capable. You just feel broken, and not just your heart, just a broken person, unquote. Regarding his feelings after posting the letter, Frank said, quote, the night I posted it, I cried like a fucking baby. It was like all the frequency just clicked to a change in my head. All the receptors were now receiving a different signal, and I was happy.

I hadn't been happy in so long, unquote. Later he said, quote, before anybody called me and said congratulations or anything nice, it had already changed. It wasn't from the outside. It was completely in here, in my head, unquote. So along with economic and artistic freedom, liberating himself from the burden of secrecy

and finally being comfortable in his own skin was another type of freedom Frank Ocean found. Indeed, in retrospect, Frank told the New York Times, quote, I'm in a very different place than I was four or five years ago with all that stuff, different in my relationship with myself, which means everything. There's no like shame or self-loathing. There's no crisis, unquote. And so to bring it all back to Frank's description of the young girl in the photograph, we view the seatbelt that Frank described tightening and pressing on his internal organs

as metaphor for constraint, artistic and financial constraint by his record label, environmental constraint by his surroundings in Los Angeles, an emotional and personal constraint by living a lie, by not fully embracing his sexuality and identity. The rocking back and forth to release the seatbelt, an action that culminates with the line, I Got Free, is then representative of Frank's escape, his escape from his record contract,

his escape from L.A., his escape from the lie. Indeed, it's no coincidence that Blonde ends with the song titled Futura Free. Futura is a font perhaps best known for its use by director Stanley Kubrick in his films, but the word itself closely resembles future. Blonde is an examination of one's past so that you understand the present in a way that grants you freedom moving forward. Future free. A return to the tranquility of one's mentality during youth,

or as Frank described it, the clear and calm of both the child's eyes and the open road. It would seem that post-Channel Orange Frank Ocean was able to find that tranquility for himself. In The Boys Don't Cry Letter, he continues by describing his experiences in the years between Channel Orange and Blonde. He describes driving Porsches in Tokyo, partying in England, riding quads in Mississippi, watching stars in Mexico, clubbing in Berlin, and recording music in Japan, New York, Miami, L.A., London, and Paris. This to me sounds like the experiences of someone living freely, like the adult. version of summer vacation, traveling the world, having fun with friends, living so that last night

feels like a past life. Frank ends his Boys Don't Cry letter linking together the fondness of his teenage years with his present day. Quote, boys do cry, but I don't think I shed a tear for a good chunk of my teenage years. It's surprisingly my favorite part of my life so far. Surprising to me, because the current phase is what I was asking the cosmos for when I was a kid. Maybe that part had his rough stretches too, but in my rearview mirror, it's getting small enough to convince myself it was all good. And really, though, it's still all good, unquote. The final line of the letter, it's still all good, is an expression of the contentment he's achieved in the present day. Contentment we know was achieved through a series of calculated maneuvers that resulted in

personal truth and liberation. Again, we recall what Frank told the New York Times, quote, I'm in a very different place than I was four or five years ago with all that stuff, different in my relationship with myself, which means everything, unquote. Frank's newfound relationship with himself, that contentment he achieved, made all the difference and to me really informs the themes presented throughout blonde. Without this personal contentment, Frank would not be able to look at his past relationships with the fondness and forgiveness he exhibits throughout the album. Skyline 2, self-control, white Ferrari, and Godspeed all display a great great,

gracefulness and warmth regarding the failed relationships of his past. With contentment in the present, Frank is able to look in the rearview mirror of his life and remember these experiences freed from the pain or heartbreak he might have felt at the time. He's able to see the bigger picture, how these experiences all led to who he is today. And if you're truly content with who you are today, you can unburden yourself from the resentment that you may have once felt in the past. If you're truly content with who you are today, forgiveness wins, kindness wins, love wins. Of course, while we can pinpoint specifics in Frank's personal life that likely influence blonde, boys don't cry, and is retelling of the girl in the photograph,

these concepts are perhaps best understood when we strip them of their specifics, when we view the metaphoric release from the seatbelt as universal ideas of constraint and freedom. We all deal with constraints in various guises, the constraint of expectations, the constraints of fear, the constraints of our personal insecurities, all the things that can restrict us from living a fully realized, unrestrained, totally free and honest life, all the things that keep us from being and expressing who we truly are? And what is adulthood, if not the constant confrontation of these constraints, the ongoing struggle to free ourselves from the straightjacket of our own complexities, in an attempt to return to a state of self-security and openness

many of us experienced as a child? We can avoid freeing ourselves from constraints because it's easier in the short term. Or, like Frank Ocean, we can confront them head on, knowing that if played correctly, it will allow for a happier, freer life going forward. Future free. Mama, they're saying on my feet, mama. Play these songs, it's therapy, mama, they're paying me, mama. I should be paying them. I should be paying y'all on this to God. I'm just a guy, I'm not a guy.

Sometimes I feel like I'm a God, but I'm not a guy. If I was, I don't know which heaven would happen. The next thing I'd like to examine as we continue to look holistically at Blonde is the theme of duality so present throughout the album. In fact, the idea of duality seems to be the structural foundation of blonde, the comprehensive component from which the compositional framework stems. First we look at the album title itself. We've already discussed one interpretation of the title, that blonde alludes to the light hair color of many children, including the girl in the photograph.

This blonde color darkens with age, expressing the duality of childhood and adulthood. Like blonde hair, the purity and freedom of our youth fades as we age. This transition from light to dark is also expressed in the transition from day to night, another kind of duality, most notably featured in the song Nights. We could also link this interpretation to the idea of summer, blonde or yellow being the color we typically associate with summer. Traditionally in literature, summer is symbolic of youth. According to Great House, a company that researches symbolism in popular culture, quote, the summer is the time of romance and infinite potential, the color of summer is yellow, and temperatures move from mild to warm.

If spring is the time of birth, then summer is the time of youth where one moves through the world with godlike ease and comfort. Summer is the background for Mark Twain's Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer stories, for it's in the summer that young boys escape from the civilizing influence of school and are free to explore, unquote. This traditional symbolic use of summer as representative of youth is thematically aligned with blonde. Many of the songs reference summer by name, something will touch more on in a few minutes. The contrast or duality aspect is realized when summer comes to its inevitable end. Interestingly, the traditional symbolic use of autumn, the season that follows summer, is adulthood.

Quote, with the coming of autumn, the days grow shorter and the nights longer, and the temperatures move from cool to warm. If summer is the period of youth in one's life, then autumn is the adult period. Autumn is associated with mortality and melancholy, unquote. This contrast of summer versus autumn aligns with the same. the dualities we've already discussed. Childhood versus adulthood, day versus night, blonde hair turning dark with age. Finally, we know that the word blonde is French in origin, and its spelling varies depending on its use. Blonde without an E at the end is masculine, and blonde with an E

is feminine. This presents another kind of duality, masculine versus feminine, male versus female. Frank has never concretely defined his sexual preference, but we know he has experience with both men and women, so we might assume this duality to represent this preference. But we could also view it as challenging socially constructed gender roles and norms, that quote-unquote masculine traits such as strength and aggression, and quote-unquote feminine traits such as sensitivity and passiveness are universal human characteristics that are emphasized or repressed depending on one's gender due to social constructs and pressures. Throughout blonde, Frank embodies both these traits, something else will elaborate on in a few minutes.

So to recap the multi-layered analysis of the dualities of the word blonde, we have childhood versus adulthood, summer versus autumn, day versus night, and masculine versus feminine. Things start to come together when we apply these thematic dualities to the structural elements of blonde. As you know, the album is 60 minutes long, divided into 2 30-minute halves, the large form structural expression of the duality theme. This division is marked by the beat switch that occurs on the song Nights. Every night looks every day up. Now the interesting thing comes when we examine the beginning and ends of the two sides of the album.

Side 1 of Blonde begins with Nikes, a song that is itself divided into two large parts. The first half features pitched up vocals, while the second half features regularly pitch vocals. We gonna see the future first We'll let you guys prophesy We gonna see the future first Living so the last night Feels like a past life Speaking of the end of side one

And the beginning of side two is marked with the beat switch found in the middle of nights A song that oddly enough also features Pitched up vocals on one half and regularly pitch vocals on the other Round your city, round the clock Everybody needs you No you can't make a big

everybody equal you got Buku family you don't even got nobody being honest with Every night fucks every day up Every day patches the night up Oh god you should match it is that K-O No ain't like us till I fuck my 28th 1998 my family had the act In the official vinyl and CD versions of blonde

Knights is stylized with a period between the T and the S that is it's spelled N-I-G-H-T period S. This period would seem to allude to the division of the album marked by Knight's beat switch, that the song's two parts serve as the end of Side 1 and the beginning of Side 2. When viewed this way, that is when we consider Knights to be two songs, we realize Blonde's two halves each contained nine songs, creating perfect trackless symmetry to go along with its duration symmetry. Side 2 of Blonde ends with Futura Free, which you know also features two parts, one with Frank's pitched up voice, and the other feature.

featuring his natural voice. I'm gonna stick around. I'm gonna let my nuts hang. Nigger, you got some just like me, don't you? Or maybe not just like me, you know, I'm Africano or Medicano. And even if you have Japanese roots for a D. Family Trees. I keep quiet and let you run your formula.

I know you let it talk. I ain't on your schedule. I ain't on a new schedule. I ain't had me a job since 2009. So to recap, Blonde is split perfectly in half. Each half is bookended by songs that are microcosms of this larger expression of duality. Side one begins with Nikes and ends with Nights. Side two begins with Nights and Futura Free.

Nikes and Futura Free all feature two contrasting musical sections, as well as two versions of Frank, a pitched up version, and a regularly pitched version. These large and small structural expressions of the duality theme are also aligned thematically. Side 1 of blonde is generally more brighter and warmer in tone than side 2. We hear this both musically and lyrically. In this way, we can hear side 1 as summer, as childhood, as day. We have the nostalgic, beautifully reflective song Ivy, in which Frank sings in a slightly pitched up voice throughout, evoking a younger version of himself. On pink and white, Frank reflects on his childhood in New Orleans and exhibits an overall appreciation of

life, referencing summer directly in verse 2. On solo from here, Frank finds heaven through heaven through experience and drug use, despite being surrounded by hell. So long It's hell on earth And the city's on fire In hell, inhale there's heaven There's a bull in a matted door Dolling in the sky

Inhale, inhale there's heaven Skyline 2 comes within another reflection Of a summer romance Frank contrasts day and night While noting that summer is coming to an end Something we can liken to one growing older This is joy, this is summer Keep alive

Stay alive Summer's not as long as it used to be Every day counts like crazy Smok Self-control both opens and closes With references to summer romance Including another statement that summer is coming to an end Post side convo

About your summer last night About your summer last night As we enter side, As we enter side two, things begin to shift in tone. If side one is summer, childhood, and day, we can hear side two as autumn, as adulthood, as night. As we listen to these excerpts, notice how on this side the musical tone is generally much darker, more abstract and experimental. Thematically, things go darker too.

Just one reference to Summer on this side. Fittingly, it addresses the end of summer and comes with Side 2's first stand-alone track, solo reprise, an angular song expressing an older man's disillusionment with today's youth. There will be no more references to Summer on the entire album from this point on. And if it's not clear that the musical and The next song, Pretty Sweet, makes the transition undeniable.

The trio of tracks, to the end I make it, all the risk I take it, and bang with my four friends we pour a taste off for the dead. This is the blood, the body of life right now, the hype. The trio of tracks that bring side two to a close, White Ferrari, Sigfried and Godspeed, are all stripped of traditional drums. Instead, we get atmospheric environments that abandoned traditional song structure in favor of a free-flowing stream of consciousness. On White Ferrari, we find Frank leaving a lover to explore the world.

Next we have Sigfried, which can be viewed as the emotional or narrative crux of the album. We find Frank's second-guessing is incaligned. toward nonconformity and personal liberation. In the center of Sigmund, Frank says goodbye to a part of himself, once of for all letting go of any attachment to the expectations of society of a quote-unquote normal life. Finally, the song concludes our life. This is not my life. It's just a fun farewell to friend.

Finally, the song concludes with Frank in the present. He states how precious and finite our lives are, which allows them to prioritize experience over expectations. He's free. Less more roast and more present. Dwell on my gifts for a second. A moment. One solar flare would consume, so I not.

Spin this flammable paper. On the film that's my life, high flights Inhale the vapor exhale once and think twice Eat some shrooms, maybe have a good cry About you See some colors, light hang glide off the moon In the dark And just how summer faded toward the end of side one

The darkness of side two fades here at its end The chaos and uncertainty of adulthood Is overcome with Frank's personal liberation And transformation on Sigfried Allowing Frank to say a final goodbye To a loved one on the song Godspeed He speaks of letting go of his claim on this person as he understands that, quote, It's a free world, that we all should be granted this personal freedom Frank has found for himself,

that we're all floating on this tiny rock that is earth, doing our best to figure things out, and that there's no hard feelings. Like the middle of Sigfried, we might also view it. Godspeed as a universal goodbye to a part of oneself, specifically one's childhood. While Frank looks at his youth in teenage years with fondness, a golden time in his life he preferred over his adult life, it would seem Frank has come to terms with who he is as an adult, and that acceptance allows him to move freely, viewing the world with childlike wonder and prioritizing experience as one does in their teenage years. Like we noted earlier,

this convergence of the past and present is alluded to in the Boys Don't Cry letter, where Frank states that in his life's rearview mirror, his youth is, quote, getting small enough to convince myself it's all good, and really, though, it's still all good, unquote. Frank has harmonized the freedom of his youth with his present day. He's freed himself from his past, from his fear, from societal presumptions, from the traditions of fame, from the constraints of a record label, from the expectations of sexual expression. As Frank stated in the aptly titled New York Times piece, Frank Ocean is finally free. Quote, this has always been my life and no one else's, and that's how it's always been since

the day I came in it. We'll be back right after the break. Now before we move on to hearing the audio submissions from dissect listeners, I do want to briefly touch on Blonde's album art. There's actually four quote-unquote official versions of the album artwork. Two of the four covers spell the word blonde without the E at the end, and two of them spell it with the E. This seems to adhere to the two versions or duality theme, not only to the four covers,

as he spelled the word blonde two ways, he also has two versions of the album artwork for each of those spellings. The best known and most frequently used album cover is the image of Frank with green hair covering his face in a shower. This photo was taken by Wolfgang Tillman's at a studio in Berlin. The photo is a part of a larger collection from a shoot that appears in the Boys Don't Cry magazine. On this version of the album artwork, blonde appears without the E at the end, the quote-unquote masculine version of the word. This creates a juxtaposition between the traditional ideas, of masculinity and what we see in the image, a crying male. This juxtaposition is extended with Frank's physical appearance, black, muscular, and shirtless. We typically don't see men with these

types of features crying in popular culture media. We recall that before Blonde, the original album title was Boys Don't Cry, which seems to have some significance to this image. On one level, it's yet another example of Frank challenging gender norms and traditional ideas of what's masculine and feminine. But we also recall what Ocean said about the phrase boys don't cry in his letter. Quote, boys do cry, but I don't think I shed a tear for a good chunk of my teenage years. It's surprisingly my favorite part of life so far, unquote. So we're presented with a kind of irony here. Frank confronts and disarms the traditional idea of masculinity, that contrary to the saying, boys do in fact cry. But he also says for him,

the phrase is actually true, that in his boyhood, in his youth, he didn't shed a tear for years. For him, his boyhood was the time of contentment and happiness, and only in adulthood did he begin to experience real pain, heartbreak, fear, insecurity, all the things Frank was forced to confront, most notably by addressing his first love, and coming to terms with the sexuality in his open letter. Quote, I sat there and told my friend how I felt. I wept as the words left my mouth. I grieve for them, knowing I can never take them back for myself." This is Frank Ocean at age 20, admitting his love for a male friend while weeping. No longer a boy, no longer a child, but a man, a young adult reduced to tears because of unrequited

love, a uniquely adulthood complication. In Ocean's world, boys don't cry, men do. Thus we get an image of an adult version of Frank Ocean crying on the cover of blonde, spelled without an E. There's also a few other things to consider on this cover. Most notably Frank's green hair. According to Wolfgang Tillman's, Frank canceled the photo shoot on one occasion because his hair colors wouldn't die his hair in time. This would seem to imply that Frank had a deliberate vision for his hair color in this shoot. It's certainly possible that his green hair was a pure aesthetic preference. But if his hair color does contain symbolic

meaning, we might speculate about a few possibilities. When one bleaches their hair blonde, it can very easily turn a greenish color when exposed to water containing certain minerals. If a shower line has copper pipes, traces of copper in the water can turn blonde hair green. Water with chlorine does the same thing. Many have speculated that Frank's green hair implies this, that like the child's blonde hair turning dark with age, Frank's bleach blonde hair turns green, that his golden years are now gone. I'm not totally convinced about this theory, but I do think it's worth mentioning. Personally, I think about the traditional symbolic meaning of the color green, renewal, rebirth, and growth. With so much a blonde about reaching personal freedom and reconciling one's past through contentment in the present,

this traditional symbolic use of the color green would seem to fit. We also realize that traditionally, a shower symbolizes a similar phenomenon, spiritual renewal and rebirth. This relates to water symbolic use in general throughout time, as a purifying or cleansing element. For instance, in Catholicism, the water in a baptism acts in this way. On the cover of blonde, Frank's tears and the stream of shower water become one, both perhaps symbolic of Frank's painful transition into his new free life. The green hair could then be viewed as symbolic of this rebirth.

Finally, on Frank's hand that covers his face, there's a bandage wrapped around his index finger. This seems to allude to the very public viewed about Ocean and singer Chris Brown that we talked about at length in our last episode. As you remember, the two were involved in an altercation at an LA studio, and Frank's left index and middle fingers were injured. At the 2013 Grammys, Frank had bandages wrapped around those fingers, similar in color and style to the bandage that appears on blonde's cover. It could be that the album cover photo was taken when Frank's hand was still healing, though the timing of the two events don't seem to line up. If it were a deliberate nod to the brown fight, it would thematically align with the masculine feminine dichotomy Frank is playing with on the cover. The bandage is a reminder of a violent conflict between two men. According to the police report,

Frank refused to shake Chris Brown's hand in the parking lot of the LA studio. Brown then punched Frank, beginning the fight. I point this out only to display that Frank was not submissive in this confrontation. In the traditional sense of the word, a physical fight is a masculine event. The bandage, a symbol of this event, is juxtaposed against Frank's crying face. It's blonde versus blonde with a knee. Frank's not crying over the incident. Rather, the bandage and his crying are a display of how the masculine and feminine reside harmoniously within us all, that the cultivation and repression of the masculine and feminine are culturally influenced. And a Tumblr post honoring the artist Prince after his death, Frank wrote about how he is inspired by Prince's

disregard for social norms of sexuality. Quote, he was a straight black man who played his first televised set in bikini bottoms and knee high-heeled boots. epic. He made me feel more comfortable with how I identify sexually, simply by his display of freedom from, and a reverence for obviously archaic ideas like gender conformity, etc. He moved me to be more daring and intuitive with my own work by his demonstration, his denial of the prevailing model, unquote. The cover of blonde, the masculine and feminine spellings, the magazine title Boys Don't Cry, Frank's wearing glitter makeup in the music video for Nike's, the absence of binary pronouns when referring to love interests throughout blonde. All these things seem to be challenging

what Frank feels are archaic notions and models of gender, of sexual preference, of the expected behavior of human beings based on what sex organs they are born with. Indeed, in the boys don't cry letter, he says of his obsession with cars, quote, maybe it links to a deep subconscious straight boy fantasy. Conscious, though, I don't want straight. A little bent is good, unquote. Even here, when Frank seems to be addressing his sexuality directly. He doesn't spell it out concretely. Same goes for his music. Frank Ocean doesn't write contrived anthems for the queer community. Rather, by living honestly and expressing himself and his experiences freely in his art, he leads and lives by example. He's famous but anonymous. He's one of the world's biggest

artists but isn't signed to a record label. He can rap boastfully one moment as sing his soul out the next. He's a black male who's attracted to men, but also obsessively. He's a woman. He's a assesses over cars and will not back down in a fight. You can catch him wearing jeans in a vintage t-shirt or sequenced tights and high boots at his 30th birthday party. Frank Ocean effortlessly lives in the in between. His existence in and of itself is a challenge to the social norms and stereotypes he finds dated and dangerous. And just like Ocean himself, blonde is so many things simultaneously. It's a portrait of remembrance. It's an acoustic scrapbook of childhood, a love letter to summer. It's an embodiment of the rebellious spirit of our teenage years. It's the

conflict of adulthood, the complications of the modern world. It's the unshackling of personal and societal constraints. It's about discovering who you are and accepting what you found. It's the refusal of the status quo, a rejection of what is for what could be. It's the disintegration of the arbitrary borders between masculine and feminine. It's about the harmonization of contrary forces. It's the reconciliation and forgiveness of one's past that comes with true personal contentment in the present. But most of all, blonde is Frank Ocean, the autobiography of an artist that relentlessly refused to compromise artistically, spiritually, sexually, financially, or professionally. A defiant, inspiring disposition through which Frank Ocean achieved autonomy

and personal childlike freedom. A blonde in life, indeed. So now it's time we transition into hearing directly from you, from Dysect listeners all around the world. As you know, I asked all of you to share your biggest takeaways from Frank Ocean's blonde and or this season of Dysect. This is always my favorite part of the season, and just like seasons past, you guys didn't disappoint. We had so many submissions this season that I had to make this a two-parter. You'll hear about 30 minutes of submissions now. The rest you can find on part two of our finale, which is available now for you to listen to after this episode ends. What you're going to hear is a montage of very thoughtful people, sharing what Frank Ocean means

to them, and by extension, what music means to them. I would ask that you listen to each person attentively and openly. Hearing from you all serves as a great reminder of just how many people in the world genuinely appreciate the power of music. It's like we're all friends that will never meet, and it's just nice knowing that there's so many reflective, motivated, honest, and passionate people out there in the world, and that music has the power to bring us all together. What's up? It's Talia from Sacramento. Before Blonde, I'd always thought popular songwriting was a specific

process, categorizable by genre, structured to be relatable and catchy, but blonde, in all its fluid, detailed, and cryptic glory, protest that notion and proves that nothing you make has to be anything for anybody. It just has to be right for you. One could say that blonde is purely self-indulgent in execution, but the end result is honest and human and free, and that's why its message transcends music. Blonde told me to let go. It's okay to live for myself and do me, because everything I am or ever will be is already enough. I often find myself listening to blonde when I feel trapped, and I'm always reminded that accepting myself in my circumstance,

to harmonize with my pain is the only way to move forward and to truly free myself. Hey, this is Grace from Salt Lake City, Utah. This season of dissect has been one of deep self-reflection for me. As I listen to the analysis on Channel Orange and Blonde, I felt a powerful connection with frank sentiments about finding yourself, embracing who you are, and being okay with not knowing the world's plan. During the Pink Matter episode, I had a moment where I just had to sit down and let those emotions come. It was one of the few times someone was able to capture truly what it feels like to be queer

and all the thoughts and emotions that come with that. And for that, I am infinitely grateful. Thank you, Frank. Thank you, Cole. Hey, what's up? My name is Gustavo from Mexico City and I'm the guy that tweeted at you that I fucking cried at the freeway listening to the self-control episode. I wanted to say thank you for showing me another side to my favorite song and I just wanted to share with you that those last moments

of the episode really moved me. It reminded me of my own mortality and how beautiful and sad and precious life is. So thank you. Hi, I'm Ophelia and I live in Prague. My biggest takeaway from blonde is that good art is messy. Blonde transcends genre and strays from linear storytelling. It paints outside of the lines and that's why it's a masterpiece. To me, this work is the perfect embodiment of the formation of a memory. Short, sweet vignettes of random details, atmosphere. I feel like memories are saved in parts, usually the best and worst, and that's what blonde is to me. Highs and lows, full of duality, contradiction, but exemplifies the feeling of longing for something that's right in front of you. Something I've been feeling a lot as my last summer of high school comes to a close.

So thank you, Frank, for blonde, and thank you, Klo, for helping us recognize its genius. My name's Jossler and I'm from Tucson, Arizona. I think my biggest takeaway from the album is the song Self-control. I had just broken up with my boyfriend and the song mirrored the situation exactly. I was his first boyfriend, and in my attempt to help him find himself, I lost myself. And I lost my self-control. And I remember sitting at my kitchen table at like two in the morning crying, hearing that song for the first time. It was everything that I wanted to say.

It was so honest. I had no idea music could be that honest. a place for me. It's nothing. Natalie, Texas. For me, there is no other artist that can evoke so much real, raw human emotion from a place so delved into the heart and soul. The way Frank paints his pictures is the exact same way we all live our lives through flashing memories and rose-colored lenses. Every journey I faced has been alongside his music. There is so much pain and so much happiness attached to every song, for me, but also for Frank and anyone else that has listened to blonde. Everything seems to be fleeting, but long-lasting at the same time,

and he's able to blend it all together into something singular, coherent, and beautiful. My name is Frank, and I'm from the woods south of Chicago. I don't think blonde is meant to be in joyfully on first listen, because every time I play it front-to-back, the euphoria feels bigger. I still play a good guy a lot, but now the chills I feel at the end of Skyline, too, lasts longer, and pretty sweet feels incomplete if I skip the intro. My ears aren't being numb, they're being unmed, they're being opened. I feel frank gracefully combating this as I listen, inviting me to take a

closer look at pieces of an unfamiliar puzzle. The flower I had to wait four years to plan is not blooming with me as its gardener, audience, and student. And I want to learn. I'm Nelson and I live in the Bay Area. I still remember how I felt the night blonde dropped. Listening to it was finally laying in your bed after a really long day. It truly came to me when I needed it most. It was my senior year of high school. I was freshly out of an abusive relationship, had just moved continents and started a new school. It was a soundtrack to my life when everything felt lonely and out of control. Frank Ocean has a quality of transcendence that makes each listener feel like the music is especially for them. I lived on Central Avenue when it dropped, and I remember sitting in my high rise in downtown

Phoenix and hearing the Central line in White Ferrari, like he wrote that just for me. Blonde was nothing I expected, yet everything I needed it to be, and I just feel lucky to be alive in his time to follow and appreciate his music. I love you, Frank. My name is Ravid and I'm from Dallas. One of the more spectacular things I took away from the season was this idea Frank proposed in tracks thinking about you in White Ferrari. And it's this notion that love transcends time and virtually the physical reality. And it's this thought that if you love someone, you truly have the ability to Marty McFly your consciousness and time travel back to that.

that love and to those feelings and who you were and just life in general. So I found that idea is so fascinating and it really, really broke my brain. The biggest takeaway on this album for me is just how honest it is. Although Frank edits his pronouns on songs like White Ferrari and Ivy and self-control, he's creating environments through sharing his vulnerability that allow any listener to get their feelings out. and I'm so blessed to grow up in a time where Frank is willing to share his story with us because he leads with love.

What he's done with his album has opened many doors and music and self-expression and emotion. It truly is an honest tale of one's fleeting youth. So thank you, Frank. And thank you all for listening. My name is Cole as well, and I'm from California. Hi, I'm Shireen from Melbourne, Australia. And I first started listening to Frank Goschamil 15. and as I've grown up I find myself listening and relating to them more.

Of course, our experiences will all not be the same, but it's the emotions felt during those times is what I believe Frank captures so well, from heartbreak to self-identity to reflecting on the past. All these things I've experienced in the past year, and I can honestly say I've never related to an album more before. The season is phenomenal and so is your attention to detail. Thank you for helping me immerse myself into the world of Frank Ocean.

My name is Zach and I'm from Palm Springs, California. Thank you, Cole. I did not think I had more love in my heart for Frank or for blonde than I already have before this season. But without fail, your microscope on this piece of work gave me a great opportunity to live with an album and an artist that I already feel so personally connected to. And therefore, to look inward in a way than I'm not necessarily capable of doing on my own. Frank creates a narrative that easily could have been straightforward and personal and raw and good through the hands of another artist. but through Frank's own pursuit of emotional sincerity and ingenuity to the crafting of this piece, Blonde finds a way to be personal yet universal, so detailed in the mindscape and the feeling of one period of time,

and ends up being elliptical, leaving through all space and all time for anyone it touches. I waited for the release of Blonde from the outside looking in. Channel Orange never captivated me past its standout tracks, and nostalgia ultra hardly piqued my interest. What was it about Frank Ocean that so fervently drew both fans and critics, to fawn over his every move. Endless released on the first Friday of my senior year, naturally an emotional time in one's life, but an abstract, ambient visual album,

while interesting, wouldn't satisfy the hype. Nike's abruptly dropped Saturday morning as I toured to university. Later that afternoon, I exploded out of my chair to download the album, the anticipation to consume me. I'm not sure if it was the beautifully skeletal instrumental on Ivy, the turbulent beat switch on nights, the piercing synth on solo, or the transcendent vocal crescendo on self-control,

But everything came into place. Hi, this is Greg from Birmingham, England, and I think that Blonde is one of the best albums of all time. I enjoyed the Tricky Stewart interview, but I disagree with him that the best songs are the ones that play on the radio. In my opinion, it's a blessing that Frank recoils from the spotlight, because if you were seeking fame and stardom, I'm certain that we wouldn't have got blonde.

It's a beautifully weird album, and one that comes from a real place, doesn't care about genres or whether it's going to be a hit. Two years after its release, and I'm still listening to it, and it's as moving as ever. My name's Brett from Texas. My takeaway is, as humans are experiences growing up, are often parallel with one another, and we're able to relate more because of similar experiences. First love, first heartbreak, unrequitted relationships are all a part of our unique quilt

that each of us stitch into our own tapestry of life. Frank has this amazing ability to concentrate those feelings and moments in the music and lyrics that makes the listener relive those moments and reflect on how things could have been different if different words or feelings were shared at the time. Charlie from Toronto. Blonde was released during the peak of my struggle with depression, which arose from a horrific ending of a relationship. My broken psyche and guardedness formed a numbness towards affection that I expected to carry into adulthood

if I chose to stick around that long. Blonde unforeseeably became the background music of much-needed introspection. Frank's ideas of nostalgia, despondent loss, and growing older, allowed me to reflect on corroded relationships and begin to understand the importance and normalcy of my relationship failures. Periodic hollowness and uncertainty remains, but Blond's thought-evoking narrative continues to offer indispensable catharsis in my path to feeling whole again.

Hi, my name is David. I'm from Minneapolis. The takeaway from this season for me was the solo episode and the talk on Frisian. I was going through a difficult month when that episode came out, so I took a walk, listened to that episode. I got chills from almost every song that you used.

Your podcast has inspired me to utilize music as a therapy in my workplace as a mental health nurse and pediatric psychiatry. I see children every day coping with active trauma, and your podcast has inspired me to do research. On the healing that music can do for the children, children I care for. Thanks, Cole. I'm Chris from South Africa, and I just want to say that Blonde showed me that music could indeed be hot. It was the first album that I truly listened to,

and not just heard. Frank constructs stories and imagery in a way that I'd never experienced before in music. Scenes of childhood, joy, sadness, loneliness, duality, that there will be bad times and good times that accompany them. I truly owe so much to Frank. and blonde for helping to shape my identity and my taste in music as I stand today. Ryan, United Kingdom. My biggest takeaway from not only blonde, but Frank's work in general, is love. For some who haven't had the pleasure of experiencing one of life's universal emotions, Frank allows those of us that are somewhat ignorant,

a lens through which all the raw emotions one can possibly feel when cultivating the seed of love for another. He's taught me that love is in no way easy, nor is it something to squander. He's provided us all the opportunity to experience things foreign to some through incredible lyricism and artistic virtuosity. We all come away with a higher level of empathy and understanding for not only ourselves, but for those we hope to fall in love with or ones we have loved and lost. And Cole, thank you. My name is Jack and I'm a music nerd from Maine. My friend showed me dissect midway through this season and I quickly binged the whole series.

First off, thank you, Cole for allowing me to enjoy music in a whole new way. Second, thank you for introducing me to the magnificent Frank Ocean. As a non-straight male, I have lots of trouble distinguishing my identity, trying to label my sexuality. Frank's music has taught me that labels aren't so important, and feelings for someone are just that. They don't need to be assigned a name. I'm a human. And just like Frank Ocean, I experience joy, sorrow, and love. It's amazing how music can help so much with self-discovery. Thank you. Hi, I am Rimal, and I'm from India.

Blonde was the album that took me on the Frank Ocean Joyride. Frank is the most perfect architect of sounds. His music evokes images and feelings that linger on even when the song ends. I am in awe of Ocean's musical talents and dissect has really opened my mind to the hard work and craftsmanship that goes behind these tracks. Blond has touched a part of my soul and helped me get out of a stagnancy in my life. Frank's voice, music and vision have helped me and accept life as is and keep alive, stay alive. My name is Adon, I'm from Las Vegas. I've never heard I dissect before this season,

but Blond is one of my favorite albums of all time, and I've listened to it at least once a week since it was released. This podcast made me feel like I've never paid attention to it. Going back after zooming into each lyric, each note, and each story behind this production has made the album less of an album and more of a grand life-changing experience that has made me a better musician by learning about the techniques, quartz, and temples that were used,

a better person by learning about how Frank Dillard, with bittersweet heartbreak, but most importantly, it has made me a better listener. So thank you to everybody that works on this podcast. The world of music needs you and thanks you. Nostalgia can be the best, but also the worst feeling in the world. Overall, you need to accept that everything changes. Nothing never stays the same, and that's okay. You can't blame anything or anyone, not even your true self.

I want to believe that everything happens for a reason, and that's what makes life so beautiful, because how can you appreciate the good without the bad, and if you're able to find the good in the bad and let the good overwhelm the bad, that's when you grow, that's when you forgive and let go, that's how you free your soul and that's when you find peace within yourself, so you can start to enjoy this crazy ride we call life. It's incredible how Frank is able to communicate this, not only with blonde's lyrics, but with its touching melodies and sounds that naturally reach into one's heart and soul. Thanks Frank, this is Ivy from L.A.

I'm Savannah. I live in L.A. My first adult relationship was with Omasquith. We dated for nearly a decade during the production of both channel Orange and Blonde and broke up months before Blonde was released. Every listen, different lyrics stood out as perfect companions to my shifting feelings of grief, forgiveness, pettiness. But Blonde was also playing when I met the first person I would date after him. And then it was the soundtrack to the beach trips I took with the person after that and the person I'm dating now turned me on to this podcast. Even without the album, Omas would have been with me all along. but sharing blonde with new lovers in all of its layered significance has taught me new textures of love.

This is Winnie and Botsana. I recently lost my dad who was the very embodiment of unconditional love. And right before he passed, I lost a relationship that meant the world to me. I was so resent for that this person cannot be the support I needed amid my impending loss, but then I listened to the Ivy episode where you said, a relationship is so much more than two people having feelings for each other. Timing, circumstance, and environment are also important, but love transcends those things. those things. And I felt something shifted me. The biggest take away from this season has been

this idea that when you reflect on a painful encounter, you can choose to freeze pains on the love you've experienced and forgive the other party as well as yourself for all the things you didn't do right. That's incredibly liberating and reminds me of when Tony Morrison said the plot you choose for your life may change or even elude you, but being your own story means you get to control the theme and invent the language to say who you are and how you mean in this world. Something's the ocean does incredibly well. Hello, my name is Saleem from New York. When I first listened to Blonde, it was an album that saved me in one of my most debilitating times, specifically in my first breakup, one that was hard to get over, to say the least.

However, listening to the intention behind Frank's lyrics had provided me a perspective that allowed me to move forward and embrace my own vulnerability, especially with the song Ivy, one that I first took as heartbreaking and then took as a sign of empowerment as I listened in on this season. Something as simple as the lyrics of Will Never Be Those Kids Again, and the start of Nothing I Could Hate You Now is so powerful. the thought of unrequented love and the passage of feelings. But even through the unfairness and desire of anger, it's not fair to indulge if it means forgetting what once was. And that realization is something I will cherish forever.

Hey, this is Sam from Sydney. What I've always loved about Frank is that he's more storyteller than singer, and like any great novelist or director, Frank knows that specificity is the best way to generate empathy, whether he's talking about an Akira legend in 1998 or a gay bar he went to in New York. And while his stories do come from a very particular perspective, through his origins, his sexuality, or just his intense love of cars. He uses this specificity as an input so that more universally insightful output can be taken on

and learned by the listener, the value of nostalgia or of past relationships or independence. I think that's what really makes Frank so special. Well, that and the beats which in nights. I'm Mike from Boston. My biggest takeaway from blonde is the idea that Frank presents that you can have a traumatic heartbreaker upbringing and be able to process that pain, yet separate the good memories and salvage them as things to cherish. There's so much wisdom there, and the way he uses different voice pitches and duality to flesh that all out is nothing short of beautiful.

My name is Grant and I'm from Canada. I think Frank Ocean and this season have been powerful and inspiring because Frank Ocean shows us bravery and courage, whether it's your sexuality or taking a risk with art or anything in your life, really. His honesty shows us an example of how to truly exist comfortably as ourselves. That's a lesson I feel like I'm going to take and incorporate into my everyday life so I can truly live as myself. Hey, Cole. My name's Jack Greenwald. I've been to the first two seasons of Dysect earlier this summer, so waiting week by week this time around was agonizing. I've loved this podcast since its very first episode, and although I've turned many people on since, being able to share my

passion with the virtual community of others out there who hang on every note and syllable like I do is remarkable. My favorite part of this season was the exploration of the Frisian concept, particularly for the self-control episode. You often advise us to close our eyes when we listen to these songs and truly hear them, and I was nearly moved to tears hearing the master of analysis, confess on a podcast about musical dissection that occasionally we cannot explain why we feel a certain way about music. Sometimes it's just so fucking beautiful. Unconventional is powerful. You don't have to have a traditional chorus to create the most infectious music. His lyrics rival the likes of a T.S. Eliot novel.

From a boy navigating his id on Channel Orange to a man owning his beliefs on blonde. My favorite artist was dissected and opened my eyes even deeper to the fact that Frank Ocean reveals himself and revealed the inner depths of myself at the same time. Now that's music. This is Brittany from Boston. Hey, my name is Ramon from Orlando, Florida. My biggest takeaway from Blonde, and this season to dissect has to be, the past doesn't have to hold you back. You can use the good and the bad to propel you forward in life. Because at the end of the day, all we have is our memories.

That's what makes us us. I thank Frank for selflessly showing us that and you call from diving deeper into this album for us. Thank you. Hi, I'm Nihal from Egypt. Blonde was released at the most turbulent time of my life. I was moving to London and I was changing as a person and Blonde accompanied me through these changes in this journey and became my London soundtrack.

Really helped me understand myself better and I wouldn't be exaggerating if I say that it really helped me grow as person. I've never reacted to a piece of artistic expression as much as I've reacted emotionally to blonde. It remains tied to my personal growth this very day. There really aren't any words that can do justice to what this project can do. means to me. I'm just grateful that Frank chose to share his journey with us. Hey, I'm Gerald and I'm from Miami, Florida. Frank Ocean, Blonde. The album that pushed my maturity and self-development in countless ways. But what I appreciate the most about blonde

is how it taught me to let go. A huge part of navigating life is learning how to let go. Let go of pain, let go of hurt, let go of disappointment, because if you don't let go, you can't move forward. I literally will listen to this album every day for a year because it acted as a bridge in my growth, a bridge to a new understanding of my life. A bridge to freedom.

Thank you, Frank. Heyo, my name is Dominic. I'm from New Jersey. Blonde is the most important album in my life. I was fresh off a two and a half year relationship ending terribly. All my friends had already left for college while I was waiting to leave and I was completely lost. When it came out, I downloaded ASAP and I could do nothing but being trained.

It literally saved my life, and I still turned to it to the state to escape depression or anxiety, even if just for a little bit. And seeing Frank a panorama was pure magic and just an experience I will never forget. Personally, my art hasn't been the same since Blonde. I find myself more daring in my instrumentals, and when I'm writing, I'll think that's no good. How would Frank word this? Which leads to me discovering more about who I truly am, if that makes any sense. Listening to dissect, I thought I knew this album inside and out, but I learned more than I could ever imagine tuning in every week. So thank you for helping me appreciate this masterpiece even more.

I have never related more to an artist than Frank. I came out as gay to my close friends a few months before Frank's open letter. July 2016, I dyed my hair at Blonde for the first time in my life. A month later, Blonde was released. Two years before the release, I moved to the Bay Area on a whim to escape my hometown. It was a journey. Blonde felt like every experience I'd ever felt during those two years. From new beginnings, remembering will never be those kids again,

to lots of pot-smoking. while rolling solo. Blonde evokes so many emotions I have felt all throughout my life, more so than any other piece of art I have ever come across. Kelsey from Detroit, the biggest lesson I took away from both Channel Orange and Blonde was that I'm not alone and how I feel. These raw, sometimes ugly emotions I experience are universally understood and felt. Frank's unfaltering talent for putting human emotions into music makes me feel a little less alone in the world and sizably more comfortable in who I am. I used to deny myself the simple pleasure of nostalgia. I thought it to be counterproductive and, to certain degree, self-destructive to reflect on the past, especially if the

outcome of the event was negative. However, through our analysis of Frank Ocean this season, I realized that nostalgia is a part of the human condition, a natural, healthy exercise of self-reflection and expression. To reminisce about foregone loves and memories, one can think fondly of a person who they used to love, but no longer do. One can have positive associations of place where in tragedy occurred. There is beauty among atrocity, love among hate, good times among the bad, and it is okay to recognize the silver linings, because life is complex and dualistic. One can have conflicting feelings and emotions and memories, and to truly live is to recognize the paradoxes of life and appreciate them for what they are. Hey, this is Leo from New York, and I was wondering why Frank's music is so damn relatable. Many of us, musician or not, we always seem to dwell on the past, memories of people that we carry with us, places that feel like mirage,

scenes of our lives that play in our mind like personal driving movies and without those movies it would be hard to get a sense of who we really are what's past this prologue if you will even though Frank is more a recluse or a mystery than most artists his music reveals everything we need to know about him and things we can't help to know about ourselves I think it's interesting how his memories don't get in the way of our memories his lyrics are so relatable it almost feels like we wrote them ourselves the moods or vibes he sets up with music could be the soundtrack of everyone's movies, not just his.

My name is Marco from Memphis, Tennessee. I suffer with extreme anxiety and severe depression, and I've always loved blonde. And after this season, really getting into it, I can genuinely say that this album has now changed the way I look at my own life and help me find the silver linings and the beauty in situations that used to only cause me anxiety, or pain.

And I want to thank Cole so much for exposing the genius of who I believe is one of the greatest artists of all musical history. That's Frank Ocean. Hello, my name is Nick, and I'm a 16-year-old from Hodginville, Kentucky. Blonde has given me the most intense emotional experience any album has ever offered me, as well as a better appreciation for this particular time. in my life, as Frank spends so much a blonde reminiscing about his youth and evoking younger versions of himself through voice modulations. Blonde describes the positives of being young and in love,

but also the negatives and the heartbreaks, and that's what makes it so impactful, is that it's all beautiful, the good and the bad join to make glorious harmony. Blonde opened me up to my vulnerabilities and allowed me to embrace my feelings rather than ignore them. Boys do cry. Just watch me when I listen to Blonde. This is Musilla from Nairobi, Kenya, and my biggest takeaway was, Frank Frank Ocean's attention to detail. Whether it's making 50 versions of White Ferrari or making the musical imitation of pyramids look like an actual pyramid, he puts in so much work to make each song a masterpiece. And even if someone listening on the radio or at a party, he may never understand all the

elements and make his music genius, they'll understand how the music made them feel. And that's what will make his music last forever. The universal emotions that he evokes, and in my experience the emotions that he's helped guide me through. Frank taught me to make everything I do a masterpiece, whether anyone else will fully understand it or not. Hello, Cole, my name is Eli from Los Angeles. Thanks for another legendary season at Dyset. On car rides with my mom, I am always playing Channel Orange, and recently she asked me why I love it so much. I told her to check out Dysect, doubting she would care enough to hear you explain every single line. To my surprise, next time I saw her, she told me how upset she was.

In fact, she listened to the Super Rich Kids episode three times because of how much she enjoyed your commentary. I just wanted to thank you for turning my mom into a bigger Frank fan than I am. Hi, I'm Jenna, and I'm from Dallas. Blan has taught me that the beauty in life can only be fully understood through vulnerability. That pain and sadness fucking hurt, but that there is beauty in healing from them. That I will never be my full self if I am too afraid of the growing pains that life waits for me at the end of my truth. That surviving is not enough. I must live honestly and boldly if I ever want to find meaning.

Blan has taught me to take leaps and to get hurt and to live and live and live. And most importantly, he has taught me that even though I am not brave, I should try to be. Hello, Cole. My name is Victor Musassia from Dallas, Texas, and I think that my biggest takeaway from the season is the idea of acceptance, acceptance of yourself and who you are, who you were and who you'll be, as well as the acceptance of others and the relationship to you no matter the length. The stories and journeys that Frank Tashuatio on his lyrics are complimented by the musical landscape he creates which as a musician and producer has been inspiring to say the least.

And I felt my mindset evolve as the season progressed and I started to appreciate the things that have happened in my life, the people who have been a part of it, and knowing that there's something to learn with each new experience. Thank you so much for making my summer more memorable, as each episode always brought new things to contemplate and great music to appreciate. My name is Sunyu and I'm from Michigan. Frank Ocean, a black queer man expressing himself so freely despite societal constraints, has undoubtedly paved the way for more great art. Blonde came out at such a formative time in my life, the first summer after college. I was discovering myself what it means to have friends to desire to be so forcefully uprooted

from an entire era of my young life. People often say that Frank's music conjures everything from our glossiest memories to the most devastating periods in our lives. Witnessing and interpreting the marriage of these two extremes on one body of work has allowed me to come to an understanding of this album and subsequently what has happened in my own life. Sometimes it's easier to reflect on somebody else's life before reflecting on your own. Hey Cole, this is Sean from Atlanta, Georgia. About a year ago, I was hospitalized after a pretty serious suicide attempt.

And at the time, I just remember all I wanted in life was to listen to Blonde by Frank Ocean again. I didn't really understand why I had this feeling, but after a little bit of the same, listening to your podcast, I've been able to answer that question. Blond taps into that universal spirit of emotion. He can say with music what words really can't. I've been able to seek understanding and find closure in my life because of your podcast. And I thank you. Best of luck in the future. Hi, my name is Miguel and I'm from Portugal. Since it was released, I have been listening to Blonde a lot for days in a row and two years later, I am still amazed by. by what Frank manages to do. Such an impressionistic collage of thoughts, ideas, stories.

I think we all have been through what Frank recounts, even if so much in his life is different from ours. But particularly after I heard the episode on why Ferrari, I began to feel even more of my life in Frank's words. Ultimately, that's what we want, to see that even in all our differences, we all deal with variations the same. being human. There comes a time where we all need someone who looks like us to give us the green light to be ourselves. These individuals stand in as mirrors,

and when we look at them, it's like seeing our reflection for the first time. In neighborhoods all across America, black masculinity is often upheld to the most toxic of degrees, and listening to Frank was a much-needed breath of clean air. For the boys who don't cry, Mr. Ocean renewed our license to feel, His work is a catalyst for connecting to and embracing our own emotions.

These songs are our Declaration of Independence. It's a reaffirmation that we can be black and beautiful, scared and brave, rigid and fluid, endless. I hope you all enjoyed hearing those as much as I did. Thank you to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts. Remember, part two of this episode contains over an hour's worth of listener's submissions, so please make sure you check that out after this episode ends. And if you didn't get a chance to submit your clip, I'm going to give you your 30 seconds now. Be it a feeling, a particular theme, a memorable song or moment, wherever you are, whatever

you're doing, take this opportunity to think about your biggest takeaway from Frank Ocean's blonde. Okay, everyone, thank you so much for listening this season. I'm genuinely grateful for each and every one of you so passionately supporting this podcast. I'll talk to you in a few months when we'll dissect another musical masterwork, because great art deserves more than a swipe. Dissect is written and produced by me. If you enjoy dissect this season, please take a moment and tell a friend, family member, co-worker, anybody you feel might enjoy the show. Be sure to keep in touch over the break by following at

Dissect Podcast on Twitter and Instagram or join the newsletter at dissecpodcast.com. Now if you'll indulge me, I'd like to take a few moments to thank some essential people involved in making dissect possible. First, a big thank you to Spotify for allowing me to do dissect full time. The team at Spotify have done nothing but support dissect in a positive way, allowing me the time, freedom, and resources to take the show to the next level this season. Seriously, it's been a dream come true. A special thank you to my right-hand woman at Spotify, Michelle Santucci for being a passionate, talented, and trusted resource, always making sure my T's are crossed and my eyes are dotted. A big thank you to Sonos for sponsoring this season. It was really important to me that we had a sponsor that I genuinely supported.

I was already using Sonos products before they were a sponsor, and it was great getting to experience their entire product line over the course of the season. Learn more about Sonos at sonos.com. Thank you to Beirocratic for the original theme music you composed for this season. Be sure to check out more of his music by searching Beirocratic on Spotify. A special thank you to Andrew Atwood for the beautiful song recreations. Seriously, how good were those? I'll be posting a conversation I had with Andrew about his process of recreating blonde, so be on the lookout for that soon. Thanks to my mom, dad, and sister for always supporting my dreams.

A huge thank you to my wife and daughter for being the unending inspiration in my life. And to my unborn child, I can't wait to meet you. We'll be waiting for you with open arms this November. Okay, everyone, that's all I got. Thanks again for another beautiful season. I'll talk to you soon.