Frank Ocean is the artist of the decade
Insider is reminiscing about the past 10 years of musical greats with a series of opinion essays dedicated to the artists who inspired fans around the world. Here, reporter Callie Ahlgrim explains why she believes Frank Ocean is the greatest artist of the decade.
With an instant classic like "Channel Orange" and a career-defining masterpiece like "Blonde," Ocean is inarguably one of our most talented and innovative singer-songwriter-producers.
His music has remained complex, tender, and intimate — as though he's untouched by fame, pressure, self-doubt, or the machinations of the music industry.
Ocean has weaved his way through the public eye with astonishing grace and intention, forging ahead in search of artistic purity and limitless freedom.
Insider is looking back on the last decade of musical greats with a series of opinion essays. Next up: Frank Ocean.
"What inspires me to make music is, I guess I'm just inspired to tell stories," Frank Ocean told the BBC back in 2012. "It all starts with the stories for me."
To tell Ocean's story, it almost feels as though some higher power anticipated a 10-year retrospective like this — as if the universe sensed an opportunity to package the tale of our generation's greatest musical talent within a neat little timeline.
In 2009, Christopher "Lonny" Breaux was still working odd jobs in LA.
He was working 11 jobs, to be exact, at places like Kinko's, Subway, and FatBurger, while writing for other artists. He was building a respectable reputation, landing songs on albums by Justin Bieber, Brandy, and John Legend. But it was modest, behind-the-scenes work (and not exactly ideal for someone who doesn't like being told what to do).
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Then, as the aughts fell into a new decade, some kind of cosmic switch seemed to flip. He signed a major label contract with Def Jam that was finalized in January 2010. Later that year, he officially changed his name to Frank Ocean.
He'd finally been recognized as a solo talent, and his career had found a launching pad. In a movie, this would've been the moment when he got swept up into stardom, swimming in money and getting showered with praise.
Perhaps that would've been the story you're about to read, were Ocean a more conventional artist. Perhaps if he were easier to exploit, willing to sacrifice his artistic vision, or eager to gain approval from traditional seats of power, this would be a straightforward tale of discovery and success.
Luckily for us, Ocean is none of those things.
We all know by now that he's a singular talent. But alongside his emotionally piercing lyrics, lavish sonic architectures, and meticulous production, the 32-year-old New Orleans native has weaved his way through the public eye with astonishing grace and intention — forging ahead in search of artistic purity and freedom in a way that's inextricable from his music.
Soon after Ocean was signed by Def Jam, he was effectively shelved.
Ocean said it quickly became clear that his label had no intentions of providing the resources a new artist needs to create a studio debut, let alone find an audience for it.
But instead of shrinking or waiting or negotiating, Ocean quietly self-funded and recorded his debut mixtape "Nostalgia, Ultra" (so quietly, in fact, that his label didn't realize it had been made by the same Lonny Breaux they'd already signed). He released it online for free in early 2011.
It was hardly the sensational drop that it would be today, but it became an underground hit. It drummed up enough critical acclaim to distinguish Ocean as more than a mysterious figure vaguely connected to Odd Future; enough to inspire awe from Beyoncé, who enlisted him to write for her upcoming album, "4" (she also went on to collaborate with him for her self-titled masterpiece); enough to convince Kanye West and Jay-Z to fly him out to work on "Watch The Throne" (Ocean reportedly wrote the hook for "No Church in the Wild" in minutes and recorded his piece in one take).
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Most importantly, it was met with enough acclaim to give him leverage with Def Jam. Even while he publicly slammed the label for its lack of support, Def Jam met his demands for $1 million and complete creative control over his next project, "Channel Orange." Ocean staged a mini rebellion, bet everything on himself, and his star power exploded.
The next five years of Ocean's career have been so heavily and devotedly mythologized that most people know the story by heart.
Ocean shook the music industry by coming out as queer, just before the release of his studio debut "Channel Orange" — an instant classic.
The lead single from his debut studio album, "Thinkin Bout You," put him on mainstream radars in early 2012. Then, days before "Channel Orange" was set to drop, he posted a profoundly moving thank-you note on Tumblr that revealed the album's main source of inspiration: his first love, who was a man.
Much like his lyricism, Ocean's note was a mosaic of feelings and details about a formative experience, devoid of judgments or limitations. Instead of labeling his sexuality in any specific way, he illustrated a dynamic understanding of queer love and our expansive, unpredictable human experience.
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Looking back, it's difficult to overstate just how groundbreaking and brave this letter was — especially for someone even tangentially related to the hip-hop community, where systemic homophobia runs deep. Suffice it to say, many so-called "fans" said they'd never listen to "Thinkin Bout You" the same way (or at all) ever again.
But as you know, "Channel Orange" transcended any worries that Ocean would be reduced to "the gay singer."
The album was nothing short of a massive success, if not a tectonic shift in the modern musical landscape. (Those young artists that are being hailed this year for "genre-bending," like Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X? Their music wouldn't exist without "Channel Orange.")
Then, after a fairly conventional album cycle for a breakthrough artist, complete with late night TV performances and a Grammy win for best urban contemporary album, Ocean dropped out of the public eye. He became more myth than man.
After four years of silence, "Blonde" wasn't just a career-defining masterpiece. It declared Ocean as a newly independent artist.
When Ocean finally returned four years later, after many teases and false starts, he had figured out a way to finish what he started with "Nostalgia, Ultra." Of course, none of us knew that yet. When he appeared on a mysterious livestream in 2016 and began building a staircase, we just cared that he was back with brand new music wafting in the background. It hardly mattered that "Endless" was a visual album with uneventful visuals, or that it was an Apple Music exclusive, or that it was largely instrumental. We kept watching because we had faith; because everything Ocean touches turns to gold, and we had finally gotten our King Midas back.
"Endless" is certainly full of beautiful, soulful, and ambient music. But in retrospect, for those of us paying attention to Ocean's pattern, it felt like he was warming up.
As it turns out, "Endless" was a winking "check" before the "checkmate." It fulfilled Ocean's contract with Def Jam. Less than 48 hours later, he released "Blonde" independently under his own label, Boys Don't Cry.
"Blonde" debuted at No. 1, overshadowing Def Jam's scarcely available visual album and finessing Ocean's former overlords out of millions of dollars (thanks to the deal with Apple, "Endless" can't be streamed or bought. Soon after this kerfuffle, Def Jam's parent company Universal announced it would no longer grant exclusives).
On top of completing what he called a "seven-year chess game" to control his own music — which included repaying a hefty advance and buying back all his masters recordings — Ocean created his magnum opus. "Blonde" is a fully realized vision with stratospheric high points and virtually zero low points.
Ocean is the only songwriter credited on gorgeous tracks like "Nikes," "Self Control," "Good Guy," and "Pretty Sweet," which is an anomaly in music's increasingly collaborative landscape. The three-song stretch of "White Ferrari," "Seigfried," and "Godspeed" is an entire world unto itself, where it's always overcast and the air is extra oxygenated, I imagine. "Pink + White," featuring production from Pharrell and backing vocals from Beyoncé, evokes warmth and nostalgia in a way that only an Ocean song can. The project's atmospheric, hypnotic centerpiece "Nights" is one of the single best songs released this decade. The album's full effect is more abstract and nebulous than his debut, and far more rewarding.
In the years before "Blonde," waiting for new Frank Ocean became something like a national pastime. With that kind of hype, it's unfathomable that anything he released could've satisfied the masses. And yet, it did.
Now, Ocean is dropping music with alarming nonchalance. He's still making music as though he's not a celebrity — as in, free from expectations.
Just as the sheen of "Blonde" had begun to wear off and we stocked the bunkers for another four years, Ocean appeared on Calvin Harris' 2017 single "Slide," which locked down "song of the summer" four months before summer even started. Then came the brilliant "Chanel."
Ocean casually released two of the decade's best songs in a matter of months. "Biking," "Lens," "Provider," "DHL," and "In My Room" — album-worthy singles, one with superstar features — have since followed.
"Maybe his music only sounds so good because he makes us wait and beg for it like hungry animals," you might've been wondering. Nope! Turns out, he's just that good. And he just really doesn't care about what anyone wants from him.
It speaks to Ocean's stature in our culture, the way he's changed our very understanding of modern music, that it almost feels irrelevant to point out how good his music is. It's true, of course — a "bad" song by Ocean's standards is one that's marginally less sublime. But it's also an inadequate observation.
Ultimately, the way Ocean earnestly grapples with themes like youth, innocence, lost love, loneliness, desire, and mortality — in a way that feels fresh and extraordinary, in a way that makes the introspective sound universal and transcendent — is why he's one of the defining artists of our time.
Frank Ocean is It. Everything he does now is a cataclysmic Event. But he makes music as though he's untouched by fame, pressure, self-doubt, or the machinations of the music industry.
His lyrics are still so intimate, so jarringly honest and tenderly perceptive, that it's like he has no idea anyone will ever hear them. For those of us who have ever felt alone or heartsick or repressed — and particularly for those of us in the LGBTQ community — this is barely less than a revelation.
Listening to Ocean's music feels like sitting in a planetarium. We're seeing his memories, musings, and complex emotions reflected prismatically across a spacious, sparkling sky. No one has ever witnessed a celestial event and wished it had been more contained or self-conscious.
Through his art and his actions, Ocean has sought limitless freedom: from fans' ever-more aggressive expectations in the quantity-focused world of streaming; from restrictive contracts; from outdated industry gatekeepers; from reductive stereotypes; from heteronormative prejudice; from fear of vulnerability; from "shame or self-loathing"; from celebrity social media paradigms; even from the pressure that he'll keep serving as our pillar of openness and vulnerability. If the decision doesn't come directly from Ocean's own internal compass, he recalibrates.
"The expectation for artists to be vulnerable and truthful is a lot, you know? When it's no longer a choice," he told W this year. "If I start to tell a story and then I decide not to tell the story anymore, I can stop. It's my story."
Callie Ahlgrim covers celebrities and entertainment as a reporter for Insider. She is best known as the office's resident music expert and probably has a rant prepared about any song on the radio. Read more of her thoughts on Twitter, or admire her selfies on Instagram @callieahlgrim.
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