Every generation has a handful of album the defines them, and though music fans can hardly agree on anything, it is usually pretty understood what those albums are. The understanding these days is that it’s not mere exaggeration that Frank Ocean’s Blonde will be remembered with the same fondness as albums like Abbey Road or The Wall. Though it’s still fairly recent, a whole generation is already starting to associate memories of simpler times with the songs here.
Whether you’re a Frank Ocean fan or not, I highly recommend you give the album a deep, analytical listen, paying attention to the narrative thread that runs through each of these songs. Then, refer to this list to find novels that dive even deeper into them.
Nikes – “The Beautiful and the Damned” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
When Blonde started off with “Nikes”, the track was quick to become the listener’s favorite track, being described as a “grower”. The high-pitched vocals and driving, echoing beat set the tone for the first half of the album, which is blatant about its duality with a beat and tone switch halfway through the tracklist. “Nikes” set this first half so well because it is sort of a prologue to the lyrical themes that are to come. The main one here being the allure and dangerous labryinth of hedonistic materialism.
For those concepts, it may feel like a copout to choose an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, but I can only argue that it’s beacuse he nailed them down so damn well. Plus, not nearly enough readers are as aware of The Beautiful and the Damned as The Great Gatsby, which is what he’s more famously known for, even though I’m of the opinion that it tackles a story of the dark inner lives of socialites and tycoons much more effectively. It’s a much clearer portrait of love, money, decadence, and the downfall of excess without quite as much glitz and glamour to sell it. This same portrait is painted in “Nikes” when Ocean sings “We gon’ see the future first / Living so the last night feels like a past life”.
Ivy – “The End of the Story” by Lydia Davis
When I first heard the song Ivy, I wasn’t aware of how profound of an effect it would have on me as time went on. Like so much of this album, the production and sonics alone conjur nostalgia like a witch’s spell, cementing its place in the time in your life that you first heard it. That’s before even getting into the gut-wrenching lyricism of accepting the fate of love lost, ultimately appreciating it for what it was, a moment in time that was as impossible to replicate as it was fleeting.
I’ve mentioned Lydia Davis in a previous blog post, only because she’s the perfect example of a stream-of-conciousness, conversational voice that feels less like a Writer Selling You a Novel and more like a close friend relaying a situation to you in excruciating detail over few too many drinks. She’s the only author I can think of that can so successfully pull off a novel like The End of the Story, a nonlinear confessional without any dialogue, chronicling the slow, painful end of a relationship. It evokes the same sentimentality and rememberance, only this time, it feels like a series of snapshots you get to quietly walk through and reflect on.
Pink + White – “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara
While Ivy explicitly handled nostalgia in a more romantic sense, Pink + White paints with a broader brush, tackling thoughts of youth, the awareness of morality, and time passing by. Heavy topics made sweeter and smoother with sparkling Pharrel production and uncredited vocals from Beyonce (seriously–how incredible and respected do you have to be to have Beyonce sing on your track without credits?!)
Strip away the precise 160 beats per minute and all the synesthetic shades of pink, however, and you’re left with A Litte Life, a story of reflection and memory as time slips away. Again, I’ve mentioned this novel on the blog before because it’s stunning, but a lot of reviewers (including myself) overstate its deep sense of sadness without giving nearly enough credit to the introspection, resillience, and relatability of its characters, all of whom would easily find themselves in the lyrics of Pink + White.
Solo – “Trainspotting” by Irvine Welsh
It’s not that I’ve forgotten “Be Yourself”, the strange interlude that precedes this track, but more that I consider the two to be joined at the hip, a necessary intro to the story that “Solo” is telling. “Be Yourself” plays a voicemail of Frank’s mother warning him that drugs and partying will stand in the way of his pursuit of his true self. “Solo” finds Frank doing the opposite of what she says–choosing himself by allowing himself to get lost in night life.
Its not only for the mention of drug use that I pair this song with Trainspotting, a novel that follows a group of vibrant characters as they navigate an addiction to heroin. But with the inclusion of “Be Yourself”, both of these stories find their protagonists rebelling and rejecting the conformity of which they are told to stay close to, only to find that they find the same restrictions and loss of identity in the other extreme.
Keep an eye out for part two–where we will continue to explore novels that pair with track like “Nights” and “White Ferrari”.
In the meantime, I definitely want to state that Frank is a writer himself, and I’ve always thought his foreword to Moonlight is just as incredbile as his musical catalogue. I highly recommend you give it a read.
Have you read these novels? What do you think? Let us know in the comments below
GEN Z BOOK CLUB 