Non-diatonic harmony and melody

>non-diatonic harmony and melody
>sections of field recordings
>sections of heavy noise
>abstract effects/production
Why was this album so popular among normies?

Frank Ocean could team up with Merzbow and normies would still love it

>reads a p4k review once

blond is great, and channel orange gave frank a normie fan base

also there's a 10 minute song, according to you guys, stuff like that is normie repellent

>Why was this album so popular among normies?
its not
every normie i met. just listens to siegfried,nights and nikes

theres a ton of hipsters who only like pink & white

My faves are pink and white and White Ferrari

when it came out, everyone i follow on twitter was sayin I LOVE BLONDE, it's the whole album

Hey guys! What's your favourite track on this album?

I'm tempted to pick some of the more sonically interesting ones, but I really gravitate to Solo. Pretty sweet is pretty sweet though, with that intro then that beat

Zero chance any normie's favorite song is Siegfried

It's not popular among normies, i've tried showing it to normies thinking they would love it and they hate it

some tracks have near 100 million streams on spotify, that's huge

those songs still have experimentation though, like that prog-rock style beat switch in nights is pretty non-normie, but they still love it!

>sections of heavy noise
this is like 45 seconds of the whole album, isnt it

nights has 60 million
avril 14 by aphex twin has 50

Always end up gravitating towards Nights. White Ferrari creeps up sometimes.

> like that prog-rock style beat switch in nights is pretty non-normie, but they still love it!
are you retarded?
kanye literally made a hit off prog-rock

also the beat switch isn't long at all. now if it stayed like that for 3-5mins. then we'll see who likes it or not

these moments make up like 5min of the album at most

the rest of the album is mainstream pop

you aren't wrong, but still, that's pretty crazy for an album with this kind of viral success

It has a prog sample in it, but the final product doesn't sound like prog. The section in nights does

b-but it's super avant-garde and I'm patrician for appreciating it

most people probably dont listen to half the tracks on it, they just stick with the more accessible ones, not that any of the tracks arent particularly inaccessible

I can see this ebing true but no one is agreeing with you so idk

This board insists that "normie filters" exist. Wouldn't those 5 minutes be normie filters?

i mean. its subjective. this is based on what my normie friends do.

not really. every normie story involves somebody giving a song 30 seconds to minute then asking to change it. none of franks songs break that rule

The album literally ends with like a straight 3-4 minutes of noisy field recordings, that's on top of all the other stuff

what do you mean?

I think you're severly underestimating "normies." People aren't going to be immediately put off by something harsh or unusual. It depends on the context/how these elements are introduced. There are a bunch of really popular songs out there that employ unusual time signatures, abrasive sounds etc. but people still like them because they're melodically approachable. That's the case with Frank Ocean.

thats literally him sampling traffic. ppl listn to that everyday
normies usually give you less than a minute. before they want to change songs. all of the "weird" stuff in franks album never stay long in the song. before he starts back singing or it ends. its still pop music at the end of the day.

That part isn't even that weird and it's probably the most out there moment of the record.

>sections of heavy noise
it's him holding his phone out of the window of a moving car lol

>prog-rock style beat switch
it's a song with two distinct halves how is it proggy

I'm not underestimating normies, I'm using this as proof that the majority of this board underestimates them

the double guitar line that bridges the beatswitch is very proggy

that's pretty unusual for a normie album, especially for that long. And there's other sections of noise, like that wall of sound on pretty sweet

Its FRANK OCEAN. Popular musicians can do whatever the fuck they want once theyre popular. Even then, this album is straight up pop. All those "experimental" elements are used in a safe and approachable context. Its harder to believe that Take Five was once a number one hit than anything in Blonde.

They skip it though. Even "patricians" wouldnt sit through it for the most part cause its vapid and adds nothing to the song

Oh, makes sense now

>"I skip it, therefore everyone does"

Then why hasn't any popular musician with the exception of Lou Reed ever released a noise album

because it's good, people like good stuff

What are you trying to argue here? That this is some avant-garde harsh noise indecipherable piece of art?

Because the fact that this was one of the most popular albums of 2016 in itself proves that isn't case. If you think this is so beyond the general public's comprehension because of a couple of weird sections then maybe you are more of a plebeian than you think.

Cause they're normies too. Im pretty sure frank ocean has very surface level appreciation of experimental music. The same reason why Kendrick wont release a jazz album.

I'm saying that the general public might be more open to experimental ideas than lots of people here give them credit for. But even then, this album seems like a bit of an exception, what does this album do that makes the experimental techniques accessible to everyone?

It has highly melodic and approachable melodies. This isn't the first successful "experimental" pop record and it's hardly an exception.
I can think of plenty of artists who got away with weirder stuff, like Peter Gabriel, Björk and even Radiohead.

HIPSTER FAGGOT CONFIRMED.

>I'm saying that the general public might be more open to experimental ideas than lots of people here give them credit for.
they aren't.

because frank ocean is good

Frank actually has incredible taste, his list of favorite songs/albums is in the Boys Don't Cry Magazine. Look it up. It's Gonna Rain is on there

there's some really mature ideas on here. working man's plight. common problems people have. I didn't like Channel Orange because it was a bunch of sketches about nothing in particular. Blonde feels connected. Frank's a rich celebrity but he did have to relocate after Katrina and work to where he is now so I respect him.
I'm pretty sure he made a couple million off of album sales because he released it independently.

i saw that list. its all entry lv.

>I'm pretty sure he made a couple million off of album sales because he released it independently.
nah he didnt. he still has to pay the ppl royalties who produced the work bro.

channel orange gave him a shitty normie fanbase, and when blonde dropped they only liked the "good" parts and i bet they ignore the more experimental parts

its the last track, 9 minutes and a half, but the song is only about 3 minutes, the rest is just some recordings, which would appeal a lot to shitty tumblr teens
this happens always
muh white ferrari muh feels