‘Paste’ ranks ‘Blonde’ #49 all-time greatest album, ‘Channel Orange’ #149
Paste has been in existence since July 2002, but it’s taken 22 years for us to sit down and make a “Greatest Albums of All Time” list. —Paste.
Paste magazine has unveiled its inaugural “300 Greatest Albums of All Time” list, and two of Frank Ocean’s records are ranked among the best of the best. The entertainment outlet’s entire writing cohort—including editors, writers, interns, and freelancers—submitted individual top-20 lists, which the magazine’s staff then used to compile the final list of 300.
Ellen Johnson wrote the following about album #49, Blonde (2016):
Many of the best albums in history defy genre, and Frank Ocean’s Blonde is no exception. A shuffle of pop, soul, R&B, rap and experimental, Blonde is thematically bound to a headspace—articulating a swirl of emotions from euphoria and hunger to angst and sorrow—but listening to it is a bodily experience. Blonde features what were boundary-pushing recording choices at the time, like voicemail overlays and loopy vocal stacks, and it’s now clear those flourishes represent the apex of an entire era in popular music. Fellow generational greats like Kendrick Lamar, Solange and Radiohead also took artistic leaps on their sublime albums in 2016, but none jumped as high as the elusive Frank Ocean. Halfway through a decade defined by a transition to life online, Blonde was tangible. And that visceral nature is why it still rings clear today.
Sam Rosenberg described album #149, Channel Orange (2012):
A mere few days before the release of his major label debut channel ORANGE, Frank Ocean published a letter on his Tumblr disclosing his affection for another man. The revelation of the enigmatic Odd Future vocalist’s queerness acted both as a major turning point for his still-nascent career and as an exciting primer for what was to come. Backed by gorgeous, sun-soaked R&B/pop production, channel ORANGE sounds like falling in love in the summertime. It gave us a swooning ballad (“Thinkin Bout You”), a 10-minute strip club epic (“Pyramids”), a sweet ode to his first love (“Forrest Gump”) and some clever class satire (“Sweet Life,” “Super Rich Kids”). Though Ocean has continued to maintain his mystique, having only churned out two back-to-back records in 2016 and a string of one-off singles, channel ORANGE paved fertile ground for other queer Black musicians to make unconventional, intimate pop music.
Blonde is the second-highest ranked album released in the past decade, behind only Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) at number 22. See the full list at PasteMagazine.com.
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