It’s this strength that allows him to take almost any subject, biking for example, and inject it with more emotion than some artists can sustain over entire albums. When people talk about Frank’s voice, they rarely point out this quality, the fact that at any moment his gentle and clear timbre can explode into rage and desperation. On “Biking,” that aggression is all concentrated in the last thirty seconds, where Frank barks unintelligibly until he’s out of breath. But Frank isn’t a pushover either there’s almost always an aggression in his music that makes itself known through other elements of the song.
Sitting up against Jay-Z and Tyler, Frank’s verses are more affectionate, more melodic, less confrontational.
“Biking” might be the clearest example of that dynamic. Instead, he keeps it mostly faithful, but always his own.įrank Ocean isn’t a rapper. When he drops into his lower register during the bridge and begins to ad-lib, it becomes clear how comfortable Frank is in the song, able to take it anywhere he wants it to go. Consequently, he ends up with maybe the most devastating vocal performance of his career, completely vulnerable and commanding at the same time. So Frank ups the ante he removes the drums, pares down the instrumental to a single keyboard and some strings, and puts all the pressure on his vocals. “(At Your Best) You Are Love” is, admittedly, a fairly low-stakes song for him to cover, sitting comfortably in his R&B wheelhouse alongside artists who are already clear influences. He’s able to interpolate and cover everything from Coldplay to The Isley Brothers without any reference point ever feeling out of place.
Like all great artists, Frank Ocean is a master of reinterpretation.
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