The Odd Future singer, songwriter channels dark episodic themes of love and addiction through a series of confessional, universal storytelling revealing the peaks and valleys of obtaining external and internal validation.
Having control versus being controlled is a tug-a-war that people struggle with in its entirety. Frank Ocean, a former member of the hip hop collective, Odd Future, strings up the concept of love and the adverse effects it does to relationships while skin-deep admirations cloud peoples’ social conscience in the process. Frank builds the ideology of control based on television programming. The listeners are grounded in this concept during the first track, Start.
Start serves the purpose of revealing a couplet of intricate memories, but also emphasizing to the audience that this is the start of its listeners, inserting themselves inside the mind of Frank, himself. Hearing the popping noise of the television screen lighting up following the classic startup sound of the PlayStation demonstrates that Frank’s audience has now entered into his subconscious or scheduled programming.
The second track, Thinking About You, written by Shea Taylor and Frank Ocean is a reminiscent tune that uncovers his romantic feelings for his first love, but his self-conscious is building self-doubt on whether their feelings are mutual when Frank sings in the pre-chorus, “I’ve been thinking about you, do you think about me still?” The second tune expounds on how love controls the way we think. According to the Webster Dictionary, love is an intense feeling of deep affection or sexual attachment to someone. With Frank showing vulnerability, he is also illustrating in his lyrics how love can warp minds to think in the moment rather than later when he sings, “Or do you not think so far ahead? Cause I been thinkin’ bout forever.”
The “Thinking About You” tune highlights how love can have this longing affect Frank’s subconscious based on intimate interactions with his lover that has power over what he feels. However, taking a chance at dropping ones’ guard can also lead to the possibility that the person he is head over heels for may not feel the same way. Frank Ocean does a great job in crafting this mysterious one-sided love affair and how love positioned him to act on his emotions when he sings, “You know you were my first time, a new feel.”
The following track, Fertilizer, written by Syience and James Fauntleroy is a short interlude that carries the narrative from the second track about vulnerability and acceptance when Frank spews, “I’ll take bullshit if that’s all you got.” Frank is exhibiting compromise in the third track to continue his involvement with his crush which is a recycled theme that demonstrates it’s hard to let go of something you love despite it not being suitable for ones’ sake, which is expressed in track eight, Pilot Jones. Pilot Jones is a song that covers the topic of first love juxtapose to drugs and experiencing first highs when he sings:
I know what I was on
I had a Pilot Jones (What you know about it?)
She took me high (Oh, did she now?)
Then she took me home (We talkin’ about)
Pilot Jones, Pilot Jones.
One thing that Frank Ocean enlightened his audience of regarding the matters of the heart is that you can’t control what you love or attracted to, but people need to be cognizant of how they choose to act on love and how they seek to validate their self-esteem.