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This is the album formerly known as Boys Dont Cry. This background of "Endless" should be this, FYI
23:59, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
Someone should add the producers Rtjfan ( talk) 02:28, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Image in question - File:BlondeAlternate - Frank Ocean.jpeg.
Since it's not actually used as the packaging artwork in any releases confirmed as of yet, is it appropriate to keep this image? I'd argue that the only reason for the use of this image is purely decorative, rather than illustrating the product in question according to Wikipedia:Non-free content, which File:Blonde - Frank Ocean.jpeg already does. It was an image Frank Ocean shared on his tumblr, not an artwork used as the cover for any releases of his album. At least not at the moment, anyways. Philip Terry Graham 08:00, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
Why is Christopher Breaux listed as the writer of the songs? According to his own article he changed his name to Frank Ocean in 2011. -- 2A02:8388:6181:6400:3D3D:852D:5D8A:4530 ( talk) 13:33, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
It appears that, despite what some people have reported, the only differences between the pop up shop version and the Apple Music version is that an extended version of Nikes appears on the former. What's being reported as the tracklist comes from the physical magazine, but does not correspond to the tracklist on the actual CD. It's probably just an out of date tracklisting and they didn't want to bother reprinting the magazines to correct it.
To be clear: "Mitsubishi Sony" and "Easy" do not appear on either version, and the two releases have all the same songs.
https://twitter.com/speriod/status/767165062146625536
Note: this tweet is from the journalist being cited as the source of the "alternate" tracklist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SteadilyTremulous ( talk • contribs) 16:49, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
Is there a reason the page name is "Blonde" and not "Blond" like the title of the album? It's stylized in lowercase but the name doesn't change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.169.30.176 ( talk) 12:42, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Yup, but the official name on the actual album is Blond — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.0.92.250 ( talk) 03:06, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
The album title should reflect the cover art, (vinyl/compact) disc label, etc. — coverage in The Atlantic claims both titles are valid, relying on Blond(e) as a way to split the difference. — HipLibrarianship talk 05:36, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
First sentence reflects album title just fine. Against changing. Icarus of old ( talk) 12:33, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
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Please update the Professional Review box by changing the "Guardian" review from four-out-of-five to five-out-of-five stars, because the original four-star rating refers to a "first-listen review", while the official review (released August 25, 2016) rates Blonde at five stars out of five. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/aug/25/frank-ocean-blonde-review-a-baffling-and-brilliant-five-star-triumph
100.33.141.187 ( talk) 19:28, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Can someone please tell me the source about "ivy" producers. Alineosasco ( talk) 00:18, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
GentleCollapse16 has disputed my paraphrasing of certain reviews--if not all--in the article's reception section. In response, I'll list them here (my paraphrases and whatever sentences from the reviews I drew from); interested editors may comment any which way they like: Dan56 ( talk) 18:21, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
"an album that unfurls its nuances"
before describing the songs as "finely-drawn earworms"
; in another it calls it "an accomplished R&B record, beguiling in its dreamy, abstracted production"
My paraphrase: Tara Joshi of
The Quietus deemed Blonde a consummate R&B record featuring nuanced songwriting and charmingly "dreamy, abstracted production"
This was disputed by Gentle as biased/inaccurate paraphrasing; I explained
in this edit summary how the meaning is not lost in my paraphrase.
Dan56 (
talk)
18:21, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
Rolling Stone critic Jonah Weiner believed its music was R&B only in the loosest sense of the word, describing it as "by turns oblique, smolderingly direct, forlorn, funny, dissonant and gorgeous: a vertiginous marvel of digital-age psychedelic pop".
Dan56 (
talk)
18:21, 25 September 2016 (UTC)"the follow-up to Channel Orange is one of the most intriguing and contrary records ever made"
; "Where Stevie Wonder was his debut’s key influence, Blonde seems to have more in common with records such as Big Star’s Third or Radiohead’s Kid A, where texture and experimentation are given free rein."
In subsequent paragraphs, the review elaborates on the experimentation and emphasis on texture in Ocean's album: "the songwriting is unconventional rather than unfinished. The shapeshifting structure of Nights or the minimalist guitar chug of Ivy – a song on which the distinction between verse and chorus is almost imperceptible – wrongfoot you at first, yet reward patience through their subtle hooks ... numerous A-list guests here remain camouflaged – nobody is deemed important enough to intrude on a sound that is Ocean’s alone."
My paraphrase/summary:
Tim Jonze hailed it as "one of the most intriguing and contrary records ever made" in his review for
The Guardian, comparing it to the experimental and texture-driven albums
Kid A (2000) by
Radiohead and
Big Star's
Third (1974).
Dan56 (
talk)
18:21, 25 September 2016 (UTC)GentleCollapse16 ( talk) 01:25, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
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User:Dan56 This article could really use a "Music" section to delve into the specifics of the album's sound, and to alleviate the overstuffed Critical Reception section of having to contain both descriptions and critiques of the album. Sounds like your type of thing. GentleCollapse16 ( talk) 08:24, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Reverting over this genre's inclusion in the article's infobox has led to this RfC. Dan56 ( talk) 07:40, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Currently, one of the listed genres is minimalism, with a citation to a Consequence of Sound review describing the album as "minimalist, avant-garde R&B." However, the reviewer, in my opinion, is clearly using the adjective "minimalist" as a modifier for R&B, obviously not claiming the album has a lineage in the likes of Terry Riley, Steve Reich, or Philip Glass, all of whom are specifically named in the article for minimalism. "Minimalism" as a genre tag signifies something completely different. If anyone disagrees, I would like to hear an explanation before my edit is reverted. Thanks. I am the radiohead ( talk) 03:38, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
User:Dan56 Please read this I am the radiohead ( talk) 14:46, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
@ I am the radiohead:, @ NewYorkActuary:, Wikipedia is not a source, yet you seem to be trying to reconcile content in this article with that of another article, the one on minimal music, which is stupid; the passage one of you cited, about "consonant harmonies..." and so on, is presented in that article's lead as fact when a closer look at the article's body would show it is the opinion of one source, Richard E. Rodda. Even dumber is you putting words in the figurative mouth of the source you questioned above; where the fuck does it say anything about "maximalist pop albums"? Or is that just a half-baked inference? Dan56 ( talk) 18:55, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
I would like to add that reviewers for The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Rolling Stone have also applied the term "minimalist" to Blonde or to certain elements of the album. On a side note, however, User:I am the radiohead has good reason to be frustrated by User:Dan56's incivility, which breaks one of the encyclopedia's five pillars and is thus no small fault. To address the former, it would be appreciated if you could expand on the difference between minimalism as a genre and critics' usage of the word "minimalist" in relation to this particular album. It seems that you are trying to call attention to the difference between minimalism in composition and minimalism in audio mixing or instrumentation. If not, please be more specific about the distinction that you want those voting "Yes" to understand. I have not yet voted above as both sides appear to have good points. AndrewOne ( talk) 05:04, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
I voted no. Here's my essay-length rationale after reading the discussion so far (I think I also specifically address your concerns, AndrewOne). @ Dan56:
The discussion has circled around the issue of (at least) two meanings of the word "minimalism" (and "minimalist".) The first meaning is the one addressed in the Wikipedia article minimal music, and it is a formal genre/category/tradition within modern classical music — your Steve Reichs, etc. The second meaning is more general and describes an overall aesthetic, style, technique, or tendency. Just so it's clear which I'm referring to, I'll capitalize Minimalism the genre and leave minimalism the style lowercase (but not lowercase.)
The second use of "minimalism" or "minimalist" is a descriptive word equivalent to "minimal," "bare bones," "stripped-back," "spare," "stark," "skeletal," "simple," "repetitive," "no-frills," etc. The word "minimalist" in this sense indicates, not specific continuity or inclusion within that composing tradition, but rather a style or approach for a piece of music relative to genre expectations. This minimalism is for music that is using as few components as possible: "striving to be minimal," not "being Minimalism." The "relative" part is important, because a minimalist approach in one genre or musical work wouldn't necessarily be that way for another—think "R&B minimalism" from that review cited above. A punk band like Sex Pistols could be described as minimalists relative to, say, an earlier rock band like The Rolling Stones, but not relative to Suicide or Young Marble Giants. Nebraska is only minimalist because Bruce Springsteen made it and he tends to include, you know, a few ripping saxophone solos on his albums; if all the Boss's previous music was also folk singing accompanied by acoustic guitar, a critic wouldn't think to call "Nebraska" minimalist anymore. There is no unifying, much less formal, "musical minimalism" for this reason, it just becomes a descriptive and relative adjective that gains meaning only relative to the context of some preexisting style.
The same definition split exists with several other examples. Another that comes to mind is "baroque," which can refer to Bach and his cohorts or just something that is ornate (or baroque pop.) This review in Pitchfork of Joanna Newsom's Divers notes its "baroque poise," but that just means its ornateness, its attention to detail, its particular elegance of the type we associate with baroque art. It's also not even saying that Divers is baroque pop, since that is a genre with specific characteristics that go beyond being baroque and being pop. To be fair, a pop musician being "Minimalist" classical is more plausible than the chances of a pop musician being Baroque classical, because Minimalism is modern/avant-garde and much Minimalist works carry pop influence and vice versa. That said, what matters is that there is that same distinction between general use of a word to convey style and a particular use of a word to define a particular category of music.
Going back to the first use of the word, I want to clarify what Minimalism as a genre is. I'm relying throughout on a source I've read previously and will quote from: The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross, a prominent history of modern classical music from the late 19th century to today, specifically the chapter "Beethoven Was Wrong: Bop, Rock, and the Minimalists". First and foremost, Minimalism is a type of music within the composing tradition of Western classical music/art music (as distinguished from folk, jazz or pop styles). Minimalism names a form of modern and contemporary classical music that emerged in the United States during the post-WWII era. For a few reasons, Minimalism was not necessarily a great choice of name for this genre. Very few if any of the composers most strongly identified with the genre prefer to use it to describe their own work. Additionally — in a way that is of secondary interest for most classical musicians or classical music writers, but primary for this discussion — the name "Minimalism" carries the problem of confusion with the broader definition of "minimalism." If critics back in the 60s had only christened this fledgling genre as "New American Tonalism" or "Repetitive Modern Classical," we wouldn't be having this discussion. But the point remains, problematic and somewhat ambiguous though that word is, it is the one entered circulation as the name for that school of American classical music, and though there is ambiguity it is resolvable.
From Ross, here's a nice description of the music from composers associated with Minimalism, some of its forebears, and some characteristics:
So Minimalism is classical music. It is unified, despite its vast diversity, by a central ethos, aesthetic, characteristics, and techniques. And it is historically rooted in a time, a place, a context. These are all clues we can use to discern whether these critics meant Minimalism as such or something else. To address the parts of this discussion earlier about harmony, Minimalism does have many specific harmonic tendencies that help define it. The works of many Minimalist composers, especially Reich and Riley, were a rejection of the atonality in vogue from the influence of Schoenberg and other serialists from Europe. As Ross notes about an early performance of Reich's music: "Since the Schoenberg revolution began, audiences had been pleading for contemporary composers to return to the plain old major and minor chords. Now the minimalists were giving them more tonality than they could handle." Further, "minimalism made hardly a dent on mainstream European music—its reliance on consonances and steady pulses broke all the modernist taboos at once."
The reason I'm talking about a seemingly peripheral issue like harmony is to say that it wouldn't be enough to conclude that Frank Ocean uses conventional tonality and, thus, that supports him being a Minimalist since consonance is a feature of Minimalism; Frank Ocean would have to be using conventional tonality, judged relative to Arnold Schoenberg or Steve Reich. The closest we get to a list of reference points for the kind of minimalism reviewers detected is Pitchfork, which namedrops Rick Rubin and Brian Eno, as cited in the discussion above. Both Eno and Rubin are pop musicians with a minimalist style, not Minimalists as such. Further, there's a reason reviewers jumped to namedrop both of them: it was mistakenly reported, based on a list of artists included in promo material for the album, that Rubin and Eno both appeared on the album, when it became clear from the liner notes later that many artists listed in the promo magazine were not actually collaborators, Eno and Rubin among them. When we're using sources to support a genre designation, we have to make pragmatic, holistic reading of the text to make sure we're not reading too much context into an ambiguity.
Minimalism doesn't signify the same thing even stylistically as the broader meaning I discussed above, because Minimalism in classical music doesn't necessarily mean a tendency to reduce to minimal elements. There are Minimalist operas, elaborate productions with tons of cast and instruments used. Nixon in China is not minimalist in the sense that it uses as few components as possible, because it doesn't, but it is Minimalist in the sense that it uses shifting repetitive phases, eschews atonality, and most importantly, is classical music with those characteristics. You could even have a musical work described as "minimalist Minimalism," if for example Steve Reich did a Minimalist opera adaptation of Waiting for Godot with few characters and an austere atmosphere. The fact that "minimalist Minimalism" can mean something that "R&B R&B" can't should prove, really, that there are two quite distinct uses of the word.
I think this alone should be determinative: Frank Ocean is simply not a classical musician, even in an avant-garde or inclusive/open-minded sense, and his work is also just not part of that school or post-minimalism. I don't think any of those reviews compare his work to other modern classical composers, or assert that he is adopting a radical new approach to his work. Just to be clear, in most contexts the classical and popular music traditions are sufficiently different, even mutually exclusive, that for Frank Ocean to actually become a Minimalist (and not just Minimalism-influenced—but he's not even that), he would have to virtually abandon R&B. Pop and classical music are different disciplines plain and simple, and for Frank to become a bona fide Minimalist would require a break as profound as Michael Jordan switching from basketball to baseball — at the very least, Frank would have to undergo some conscious reinvention and explicit association with the work of Minimalist composers, beyond influence alone.
Now, there is some cross-genre influence between Minimalists and the pop tradition — but importantly, influence from a genre is not inclusion within it. Ross says in his book's intro, "minimalism has marked rock, pop, and dance music from the Velvet Underground onward." Ross cites the Velvet Underground, David Bowie's Low, Sonic Youth, and The Who's "Baba O'Riley" for their influence from Minimalism — but he's not including them as Minimalists or classical musicians of any sort, just noting the cross-genre dialogue; he similarly cites Miles Davis's influence on Reich, but that hardly makes Reich a jazz musician. Another very prominent example of Minimalism's influence are Eno's ambient music and the genre it spawned. Ambient music is not inherently classical, but some pieces are sometimes considered in the context of Minimalism/modern classical, and there is compatibility between some ambient and classical that doesn't exist between any pop and classical. In other words, ambient music doesn't have the same mutually exclusive divide between pop and classical/art music because ambient is sort of its own thing, not a subgenre of popular music. Speaking of Low, Philip Glass's Symphony No. 1 is an interpretation of David Bowie's album. Bowie's is classical-influenced pop, and Glass's is pop-influenced classical, and it's easy to tell the difference.
But besides, even once we've acknowledge that there is some cross-pollination between pop and modern classical that makes Blonde=Minimalism somewhat plausible, the sources don't support it. Even if we are to "stop being so strict about genres tags" as Gentlecollapse6 earlier in the discussion, we would still lack any source that would really allow us to place Blonde in even a very inclusive, generous understanding of the genre. Ocean has not stated any influence from modern classical music, and no critics have written about any influence from modern classical music. So, while Minimalism and modern classical are quite inclusive and even pop-friendly, we lack any textual reason from the sources to believe they meant that Frank falls even within a generously broad understanding of Minimalism, and influence alone is not inclusion within a genre. To be Minimalism, Frank's music would, categorically, have to be classical music in the first place, and popular music is categorically not classical music, even if it is influenced by classical music, which Frank doesn't seem to be by any indication anyway.
There are many reviews that used "minimalism" or "minimalist," but among the ones I've looked at there is not one indication that any reviewer meant formal Minimalism. You'd think if critics meant that — a quite novel thing to associate with an R&B singer — even one among them would clarify their intentions and write something like, "Frank Ocean's new album is minimalist — and I don't just mean that it's pretty minimal. It is a radical reinvention and adoption of the modern classical style as pioneered by Terry Riley and Steve Reich." We would need something that unambiguous, that goes beyond mere use of the word "minimalist" alone, something that alludes to modern classical, something specific and decisive that would resolve the ambiguity in modern classical's favor. I don't think that's being "strict" or "fascist." I just don't see any of the kind of clues that would allow even an expansive definition of Modernism to apply. It's guarding against a form of synthesis by inferring specific meaning from an otherwise ambiguous word. The closest textual support is "This qualifies as minimalist avant-garde" from the CoS review, but that's not nearly enough. "Avant-garde" has the same ambiguity issue as "minimalist," and mashing two squishy terms together does give us something solid. And it's clear from the rest of that same sentence that the reviewer means something very squishy: "the reflection of what’s perceived to be known and the dismantling of it into reworded lessons, something that challenges what you know, what you’ve been taught, what you’ve learned, and then questions what remains, what can be discovered, what’s still ignorantly regarded as truth." By "minimalist avant-garde," he meant basically "it's not aggressive compared to most R&B" and "it's emotionally challenging and innovative relative to most R&B," but I can't read into that sentence that he meant "Frank reminds me of Steve Reich," much less "I am intentionally evoking modern classical music in particular and, not only is this influenced by it, it indeed is modern classical."
Last side note before I conclude, which is aside about Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia is not a reliable source to support substantive, factual content in the encyclopedia itself. But in meta arguments on talk pages, it's often relevant to refer to the contents and subject matter of other pages. That's especially when the discussion is about linking to another article when there is an ambiguity, because in that case discerning another page's subject matter is an essential component of the whole argument. Wikipedia can be a source to persuasive effect on talk pages, just not for substantive sourcing in the main encyclopedia space.A good overall rule of thumb: if there's any ambiguity about whether an album falls within a specific formal genre, or if it's just critics using general descriptive words, it's not part of that genre. Genre categorizations are the kind of thing that so easily lead to big heated disputes and confusions that they really should only be applied when it is totally unambiguous what a source meant — and that what they meant is not just description, or even influence, but inclusion within a genre. It would be almost always be better to err on the side of not listing the genre, especially when as here it's strikes a few people as a bit of a stretch. I wrote a similarly long-winded (but thorough!) argument against describing OK Computer as " experimental rock" (which is a formal genre, not just any "rock" described as "experimental"), which can be found here under the "Genre in the lead and infobox, with in-depth evaluation of "experimental rock" as a label" subsection. — BLZ · talk 09:21, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
The track "Nights" appears as "Night.s" on the vinyl version of blonde.
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Nights needs to be fixed in the track listing. It currently says Night.s. Thanks! 71.87.228.183 ( talk) 00:22, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
The consensus is that Blonde is Frank Ocean's second studio album.
An editor named Bluesatellite added sources saying Blonde was Frank Ocean's third studio album right here, however there are other sources calling this his second studio album [1] [2] [3]. Is this considered Frank Ocean's second studio album or his third? TheAmazingPeanuts ( talk) 16:14, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Comment - Retrospective articles that comment on Ocean's discography place Blonde as the second studio album, Channel Orange the first, Nostalgia Ultra a mixtape, and Endless a video album, leaving no "third" studio album:
Dan56 ( talk) 22:11, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Easy (Frank Ocean song). Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Shhhnotsoloud ( talk) 09:26, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
Closing discussion per WP:EVADE. |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
User:TheAmazingPeanuts keeps on removing the genre soft rock saying that it's not on the source while it simply is, plus keeps on restoring a not neutral choice of reviews that only picks the higher ones.-- Hotbox eron ( talk) 17:58, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
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You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 03:39, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Why is this article named as Blonde when it's clearly Blond as per the album cover. If the references all say Blonde then they're wrong. The album itself is the primary source. Tuzapicabit ( talk) 22:31, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
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This is the album formerly known as Boys Dont Cry. This background of "Endless" should be this, FYI
23:59, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
Someone should add the producers Rtjfan ( talk) 02:28, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Image in question - File:BlondeAlternate - Frank Ocean.jpeg.
Since it's not actually used as the packaging artwork in any releases confirmed as of yet, is it appropriate to keep this image? I'd argue that the only reason for the use of this image is purely decorative, rather than illustrating the product in question according to Wikipedia:Non-free content, which File:Blonde - Frank Ocean.jpeg already does. It was an image Frank Ocean shared on his tumblr, not an artwork used as the cover for any releases of his album. At least not at the moment, anyways. Philip Terry Graham 08:00, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
Why is Christopher Breaux listed as the writer of the songs? According to his own article he changed his name to Frank Ocean in 2011. -- 2A02:8388:6181:6400:3D3D:852D:5D8A:4530 ( talk) 13:33, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
It appears that, despite what some people have reported, the only differences between the pop up shop version and the Apple Music version is that an extended version of Nikes appears on the former. What's being reported as the tracklist comes from the physical magazine, but does not correspond to the tracklist on the actual CD. It's probably just an out of date tracklisting and they didn't want to bother reprinting the magazines to correct it.
To be clear: "Mitsubishi Sony" and "Easy" do not appear on either version, and the two releases have all the same songs.
https://twitter.com/speriod/status/767165062146625536
Note: this tweet is from the journalist being cited as the source of the "alternate" tracklist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SteadilyTremulous ( talk • contribs) 16:49, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
Is there a reason the page name is "Blonde" and not "Blond" like the title of the album? It's stylized in lowercase but the name doesn't change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.169.30.176 ( talk) 12:42, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Yup, but the official name on the actual album is Blond — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.0.92.250 ( talk) 03:06, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
The album title should reflect the cover art, (vinyl/compact) disc label, etc. — coverage in The Atlantic claims both titles are valid, relying on Blond(e) as a way to split the difference. — HipLibrarianship talk 05:36, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
First sentence reflects album title just fine. Against changing. Icarus of old ( talk) 12:33, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
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Please update the Professional Review box by changing the "Guardian" review from four-out-of-five to five-out-of-five stars, because the original four-star rating refers to a "first-listen review", while the official review (released August 25, 2016) rates Blonde at five stars out of five. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/aug/25/frank-ocean-blonde-review-a-baffling-and-brilliant-five-star-triumph
100.33.141.187 ( talk) 19:28, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Can someone please tell me the source about "ivy" producers. Alineosasco ( talk) 00:18, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
GentleCollapse16 has disputed my paraphrasing of certain reviews--if not all--in the article's reception section. In response, I'll list them here (my paraphrases and whatever sentences from the reviews I drew from); interested editors may comment any which way they like: Dan56 ( talk) 18:21, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
"an album that unfurls its nuances"
before describing the songs as "finely-drawn earworms"
; in another it calls it "an accomplished R&B record, beguiling in its dreamy, abstracted production"
My paraphrase: Tara Joshi of
The Quietus deemed Blonde a consummate R&B record featuring nuanced songwriting and charmingly "dreamy, abstracted production"
This was disputed by Gentle as biased/inaccurate paraphrasing; I explained
in this edit summary how the meaning is not lost in my paraphrase.
Dan56 (
talk)
18:21, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
Rolling Stone critic Jonah Weiner believed its music was R&B only in the loosest sense of the word, describing it as "by turns oblique, smolderingly direct, forlorn, funny, dissonant and gorgeous: a vertiginous marvel of digital-age psychedelic pop".
Dan56 (
talk)
18:21, 25 September 2016 (UTC)"the follow-up to Channel Orange is one of the most intriguing and contrary records ever made"
; "Where Stevie Wonder was his debut’s key influence, Blonde seems to have more in common with records such as Big Star’s Third or Radiohead’s Kid A, where texture and experimentation are given free rein."
In subsequent paragraphs, the review elaborates on the experimentation and emphasis on texture in Ocean's album: "the songwriting is unconventional rather than unfinished. The shapeshifting structure of Nights or the minimalist guitar chug of Ivy – a song on which the distinction between verse and chorus is almost imperceptible – wrongfoot you at first, yet reward patience through their subtle hooks ... numerous A-list guests here remain camouflaged – nobody is deemed important enough to intrude on a sound that is Ocean’s alone."
My paraphrase/summary:
Tim Jonze hailed it as "one of the most intriguing and contrary records ever made" in his review for
The Guardian, comparing it to the experimental and texture-driven albums
Kid A (2000) by
Radiohead and
Big Star's
Third (1974).
Dan56 (
talk)
18:21, 25 September 2016 (UTC)GentleCollapse16 ( talk) 01:25, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
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User:Dan56 This article could really use a "Music" section to delve into the specifics of the album's sound, and to alleviate the overstuffed Critical Reception section of having to contain both descriptions and critiques of the album. Sounds like your type of thing. GentleCollapse16 ( talk) 08:24, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Reverting over this genre's inclusion in the article's infobox has led to this RfC. Dan56 ( talk) 07:40, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Currently, one of the listed genres is minimalism, with a citation to a Consequence of Sound review describing the album as "minimalist, avant-garde R&B." However, the reviewer, in my opinion, is clearly using the adjective "minimalist" as a modifier for R&B, obviously not claiming the album has a lineage in the likes of Terry Riley, Steve Reich, or Philip Glass, all of whom are specifically named in the article for minimalism. "Minimalism" as a genre tag signifies something completely different. If anyone disagrees, I would like to hear an explanation before my edit is reverted. Thanks. I am the radiohead ( talk) 03:38, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
User:Dan56 Please read this I am the radiohead ( talk) 14:46, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
@ I am the radiohead:, @ NewYorkActuary:, Wikipedia is not a source, yet you seem to be trying to reconcile content in this article with that of another article, the one on minimal music, which is stupid; the passage one of you cited, about "consonant harmonies..." and so on, is presented in that article's lead as fact when a closer look at the article's body would show it is the opinion of one source, Richard E. Rodda. Even dumber is you putting words in the figurative mouth of the source you questioned above; where the fuck does it say anything about "maximalist pop albums"? Or is that just a half-baked inference? Dan56 ( talk) 18:55, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
I would like to add that reviewers for The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Rolling Stone have also applied the term "minimalist" to Blonde or to certain elements of the album. On a side note, however, User:I am the radiohead has good reason to be frustrated by User:Dan56's incivility, which breaks one of the encyclopedia's five pillars and is thus no small fault. To address the former, it would be appreciated if you could expand on the difference between minimalism as a genre and critics' usage of the word "minimalist" in relation to this particular album. It seems that you are trying to call attention to the difference between minimalism in composition and minimalism in audio mixing or instrumentation. If not, please be more specific about the distinction that you want those voting "Yes" to understand. I have not yet voted above as both sides appear to have good points. AndrewOne ( talk) 05:04, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
I voted no. Here's my essay-length rationale after reading the discussion so far (I think I also specifically address your concerns, AndrewOne). @ Dan56:
The discussion has circled around the issue of (at least) two meanings of the word "minimalism" (and "minimalist".) The first meaning is the one addressed in the Wikipedia article minimal music, and it is a formal genre/category/tradition within modern classical music — your Steve Reichs, etc. The second meaning is more general and describes an overall aesthetic, style, technique, or tendency. Just so it's clear which I'm referring to, I'll capitalize Minimalism the genre and leave minimalism the style lowercase (but not lowercase.)
The second use of "minimalism" or "minimalist" is a descriptive word equivalent to "minimal," "bare bones," "stripped-back," "spare," "stark," "skeletal," "simple," "repetitive," "no-frills," etc. The word "minimalist" in this sense indicates, not specific continuity or inclusion within that composing tradition, but rather a style or approach for a piece of music relative to genre expectations. This minimalism is for music that is using as few components as possible: "striving to be minimal," not "being Minimalism." The "relative" part is important, because a minimalist approach in one genre or musical work wouldn't necessarily be that way for another—think "R&B minimalism" from that review cited above. A punk band like Sex Pistols could be described as minimalists relative to, say, an earlier rock band like The Rolling Stones, but not relative to Suicide or Young Marble Giants. Nebraska is only minimalist because Bruce Springsteen made it and he tends to include, you know, a few ripping saxophone solos on his albums; if all the Boss's previous music was also folk singing accompanied by acoustic guitar, a critic wouldn't think to call "Nebraska" minimalist anymore. There is no unifying, much less formal, "musical minimalism" for this reason, it just becomes a descriptive and relative adjective that gains meaning only relative to the context of some preexisting style.
The same definition split exists with several other examples. Another that comes to mind is "baroque," which can refer to Bach and his cohorts or just something that is ornate (or baroque pop.) This review in Pitchfork of Joanna Newsom's Divers notes its "baroque poise," but that just means its ornateness, its attention to detail, its particular elegance of the type we associate with baroque art. It's also not even saying that Divers is baroque pop, since that is a genre with specific characteristics that go beyond being baroque and being pop. To be fair, a pop musician being "Minimalist" classical is more plausible than the chances of a pop musician being Baroque classical, because Minimalism is modern/avant-garde and much Minimalist works carry pop influence and vice versa. That said, what matters is that there is that same distinction between general use of a word to convey style and a particular use of a word to define a particular category of music.
Going back to the first use of the word, I want to clarify what Minimalism as a genre is. I'm relying throughout on a source I've read previously and will quote from: The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross, a prominent history of modern classical music from the late 19th century to today, specifically the chapter "Beethoven Was Wrong: Bop, Rock, and the Minimalists". First and foremost, Minimalism is a type of music within the composing tradition of Western classical music/art music (as distinguished from folk, jazz or pop styles). Minimalism names a form of modern and contemporary classical music that emerged in the United States during the post-WWII era. For a few reasons, Minimalism was not necessarily a great choice of name for this genre. Very few if any of the composers most strongly identified with the genre prefer to use it to describe their own work. Additionally — in a way that is of secondary interest for most classical musicians or classical music writers, but primary for this discussion — the name "Minimalism" carries the problem of confusion with the broader definition of "minimalism." If critics back in the 60s had only christened this fledgling genre as "New American Tonalism" or "Repetitive Modern Classical," we wouldn't be having this discussion. But the point remains, problematic and somewhat ambiguous though that word is, it is the one entered circulation as the name for that school of American classical music, and though there is ambiguity it is resolvable.
From Ross, here's a nice description of the music from composers associated with Minimalism, some of its forebears, and some characteristics:
So Minimalism is classical music. It is unified, despite its vast diversity, by a central ethos, aesthetic, characteristics, and techniques. And it is historically rooted in a time, a place, a context. These are all clues we can use to discern whether these critics meant Minimalism as such or something else. To address the parts of this discussion earlier about harmony, Minimalism does have many specific harmonic tendencies that help define it. The works of many Minimalist composers, especially Reich and Riley, were a rejection of the atonality in vogue from the influence of Schoenberg and other serialists from Europe. As Ross notes about an early performance of Reich's music: "Since the Schoenberg revolution began, audiences had been pleading for contemporary composers to return to the plain old major and minor chords. Now the minimalists were giving them more tonality than they could handle." Further, "minimalism made hardly a dent on mainstream European music—its reliance on consonances and steady pulses broke all the modernist taboos at once."
The reason I'm talking about a seemingly peripheral issue like harmony is to say that it wouldn't be enough to conclude that Frank Ocean uses conventional tonality and, thus, that supports him being a Minimalist since consonance is a feature of Minimalism; Frank Ocean would have to be using conventional tonality, judged relative to Arnold Schoenberg or Steve Reich. The closest we get to a list of reference points for the kind of minimalism reviewers detected is Pitchfork, which namedrops Rick Rubin and Brian Eno, as cited in the discussion above. Both Eno and Rubin are pop musicians with a minimalist style, not Minimalists as such. Further, there's a reason reviewers jumped to namedrop both of them: it was mistakenly reported, based on a list of artists included in promo material for the album, that Rubin and Eno both appeared on the album, when it became clear from the liner notes later that many artists listed in the promo magazine were not actually collaborators, Eno and Rubin among them. When we're using sources to support a genre designation, we have to make pragmatic, holistic reading of the text to make sure we're not reading too much context into an ambiguity.
Minimalism doesn't signify the same thing even stylistically as the broader meaning I discussed above, because Minimalism in classical music doesn't necessarily mean a tendency to reduce to minimal elements. There are Minimalist operas, elaborate productions with tons of cast and instruments used. Nixon in China is not minimalist in the sense that it uses as few components as possible, because it doesn't, but it is Minimalist in the sense that it uses shifting repetitive phases, eschews atonality, and most importantly, is classical music with those characteristics. You could even have a musical work described as "minimalist Minimalism," if for example Steve Reich did a Minimalist opera adaptation of Waiting for Godot with few characters and an austere atmosphere. The fact that "minimalist Minimalism" can mean something that "R&B R&B" can't should prove, really, that there are two quite distinct uses of the word.
I think this alone should be determinative: Frank Ocean is simply not a classical musician, even in an avant-garde or inclusive/open-minded sense, and his work is also just not part of that school or post-minimalism. I don't think any of those reviews compare his work to other modern classical composers, or assert that he is adopting a radical new approach to his work. Just to be clear, in most contexts the classical and popular music traditions are sufficiently different, even mutually exclusive, that for Frank Ocean to actually become a Minimalist (and not just Minimalism-influenced—but he's not even that), he would have to virtually abandon R&B. Pop and classical music are different disciplines plain and simple, and for Frank to become a bona fide Minimalist would require a break as profound as Michael Jordan switching from basketball to baseball — at the very least, Frank would have to undergo some conscious reinvention and explicit association with the work of Minimalist composers, beyond influence alone.
Now, there is some cross-genre influence between Minimalists and the pop tradition — but importantly, influence from a genre is not inclusion within it. Ross says in his book's intro, "minimalism has marked rock, pop, and dance music from the Velvet Underground onward." Ross cites the Velvet Underground, David Bowie's Low, Sonic Youth, and The Who's "Baba O'Riley" for their influence from Minimalism — but he's not including them as Minimalists or classical musicians of any sort, just noting the cross-genre dialogue; he similarly cites Miles Davis's influence on Reich, but that hardly makes Reich a jazz musician. Another very prominent example of Minimalism's influence are Eno's ambient music and the genre it spawned. Ambient music is not inherently classical, but some pieces are sometimes considered in the context of Minimalism/modern classical, and there is compatibility between some ambient and classical that doesn't exist between any pop and classical. In other words, ambient music doesn't have the same mutually exclusive divide between pop and classical/art music because ambient is sort of its own thing, not a subgenre of popular music. Speaking of Low, Philip Glass's Symphony No. 1 is an interpretation of David Bowie's album. Bowie's is classical-influenced pop, and Glass's is pop-influenced classical, and it's easy to tell the difference.
But besides, even once we've acknowledge that there is some cross-pollination between pop and modern classical that makes Blonde=Minimalism somewhat plausible, the sources don't support it. Even if we are to "stop being so strict about genres tags" as Gentlecollapse6 earlier in the discussion, we would still lack any source that would really allow us to place Blonde in even a very inclusive, generous understanding of the genre. Ocean has not stated any influence from modern classical music, and no critics have written about any influence from modern classical music. So, while Minimalism and modern classical are quite inclusive and even pop-friendly, we lack any textual reason from the sources to believe they meant that Frank falls even within a generously broad understanding of Minimalism, and influence alone is not inclusion within a genre. To be Minimalism, Frank's music would, categorically, have to be classical music in the first place, and popular music is categorically not classical music, even if it is influenced by classical music, which Frank doesn't seem to be by any indication anyway.
There are many reviews that used "minimalism" or "minimalist," but among the ones I've looked at there is not one indication that any reviewer meant formal Minimalism. You'd think if critics meant that — a quite novel thing to associate with an R&B singer — even one among them would clarify their intentions and write something like, "Frank Ocean's new album is minimalist — and I don't just mean that it's pretty minimal. It is a radical reinvention and adoption of the modern classical style as pioneered by Terry Riley and Steve Reich." We would need something that unambiguous, that goes beyond mere use of the word "minimalist" alone, something that alludes to modern classical, something specific and decisive that would resolve the ambiguity in modern classical's favor. I don't think that's being "strict" or "fascist." I just don't see any of the kind of clues that would allow even an expansive definition of Modernism to apply. It's guarding against a form of synthesis by inferring specific meaning from an otherwise ambiguous word. The closest textual support is "This qualifies as minimalist avant-garde" from the CoS review, but that's not nearly enough. "Avant-garde" has the same ambiguity issue as "minimalist," and mashing two squishy terms together does give us something solid. And it's clear from the rest of that same sentence that the reviewer means something very squishy: "the reflection of what’s perceived to be known and the dismantling of it into reworded lessons, something that challenges what you know, what you’ve been taught, what you’ve learned, and then questions what remains, what can be discovered, what’s still ignorantly regarded as truth." By "minimalist avant-garde," he meant basically "it's not aggressive compared to most R&B" and "it's emotionally challenging and innovative relative to most R&B," but I can't read into that sentence that he meant "Frank reminds me of Steve Reich," much less "I am intentionally evoking modern classical music in particular and, not only is this influenced by it, it indeed is modern classical."
Last side note before I conclude, which is aside about Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia is not a reliable source to support substantive, factual content in the encyclopedia itself. But in meta arguments on talk pages, it's often relevant to refer to the contents and subject matter of other pages. That's especially when the discussion is about linking to another article when there is an ambiguity, because in that case discerning another page's subject matter is an essential component of the whole argument. Wikipedia can be a source to persuasive effect on talk pages, just not for substantive sourcing in the main encyclopedia space.A good overall rule of thumb: if there's any ambiguity about whether an album falls within a specific formal genre, or if it's just critics using general descriptive words, it's not part of that genre. Genre categorizations are the kind of thing that so easily lead to big heated disputes and confusions that they really should only be applied when it is totally unambiguous what a source meant — and that what they meant is not just description, or even influence, but inclusion within a genre. It would be almost always be better to err on the side of not listing the genre, especially when as here it's strikes a few people as a bit of a stretch. I wrote a similarly long-winded (but thorough!) argument against describing OK Computer as " experimental rock" (which is a formal genre, not just any "rock" described as "experimental"), which can be found here under the "Genre in the lead and infobox, with in-depth evaluation of "experimental rock" as a label" subsection. — BLZ · talk 09:21, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
The track "Nights" appears as "Night.s" on the vinyl version of blonde.
This
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Nights needs to be fixed in the track listing. It currently says Night.s. Thanks! 71.87.228.183 ( talk) 00:22, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
The consensus is that Blonde is Frank Ocean's second studio album.
An editor named Bluesatellite added sources saying Blonde was Frank Ocean's third studio album right here, however there are other sources calling this his second studio album [1] [2] [3]. Is this considered Frank Ocean's second studio album or his third? TheAmazingPeanuts ( talk) 16:14, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Comment - Retrospective articles that comment on Ocean's discography place Blonde as the second studio album, Channel Orange the first, Nostalgia Ultra a mixtape, and Endless a video album, leaving no "third" studio album:
Dan56 ( talk) 22:11, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Easy (Frank Ocean song). Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Shhhnotsoloud ( talk) 09:26, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
Closing discussion per WP:EVADE. |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
User:TheAmazingPeanuts keeps on removing the genre soft rock saying that it's not on the source while it simply is, plus keeps on restoring a not neutral choice of reviews that only picks the higher ones.-- Hotbox eron ( talk) 17:58, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
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The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:
You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 03:39, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
Why is this article named as Blonde when it's clearly Blond as per the album cover. If the references all say Blonde then they're wrong. The album itself is the primary source. Tuzapicabit ( talk) 22:31, 13 June 2024 (UTC)