Our Best Frank Ocean Songs of All Time [2023]

In this article, we have shared some of the best Frank Ocean songs of all time. Usually, an artist rarely refuses to submit to the corporate machinery of the American music industry. At the same time, It’s extremely unusual when people work sincerely for the love of their art. But, Frank Ocean is one such talent who has built a reputation for himself in the last decade.

Frank Ocean is an American singer, songwriter, and rapper, born on October 28, 1987. He is credited for popularizing alternative R&B and is noted for his subsequent sporadic and experimental musical approach. Moreover, his peculiar musical style, contemplative and elliptical lyricism, and vast vocal range always keep him at the center of the music industry.

Prior to joining the hip hop collective Odd Future in 2010, Ocean began his musical career as a ghostwriter. One year later, Ocean signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings after releasing his critically acclaimed first mixtape Nostalgia.

Ocean’s debut album, Channel Orange (2012), was one of the year’s most critically praised albums. Subsequently, at the 2013 Grammy Awards, it won Best Urban Contemporary Album and was nominated for Album of the Year. Additionally Ocean’s hit track from that album “Thinkin Bout You” earned him a Record of the Year nomination.

While we wait for a new album to be released (hopefully soon), we’ve put up a list for you. Here are the 15 Best Frank Ocean Songs to remind you why you originally fell in love with his music.

Table of Contents

15 Best Frank Ocean Songs

1. Thinking Bout You

Thinking Bout You is the first track of Frank’s debut studio album Channel Orange. The song looks to be a lovely love ballad dedicated to someone’s significant one. The song itself illustrates that he can not stop thinking about her because she fills him with happiness.

Particularly, on any given day, the song may trigger a wide range of emotions. The words have the ability to make you cry, inspire you to keep going and embrace all of the emotions that occur in between these moments.

Eventually, the song received favorable feedback and charted successfully on several charts and billboards. This is also a fan favorite and one of the best Frank Ocean songs.

2. Ivy

Frank Ocean’s 2016 album “Blonde” features this track. The song’s lyrics discuss a misunderstanding of love and regret. Critics complimented the song’s lyrics, and it was well-received.

First, the song immerses you in Frank Ocean’s story of a shattered relationship. Therefore, the words express remorse for a romance he was unable to save. This is written all over the lyrics like “All the things I didn’t mean to say or do” and “It’s quite okay to hate me now.”

It charted at number 80 on the Billboard Hot 100, and it was a critical success for Frank Ocean’s career as a whole.

3. Super Rich Kids

The fifth single from his debut studio album, Channel Orange, is “Super Rich Kids.” Ocean performed it live for the first time in 2011 and again in 2012 on his Channel Orange Tour.

This song describes life as an American adolescent with affluent parents, which is lavish and carefree.

To clarify, it’s about wealthy teenagers whose “parents aren’t around enough” and who enjoy the liberties that come with wealth. The song was inspired by “The Great Gatsby,” in that the protagonist is “searching for real love” but ends up disillusioned.

4. Novacane

The debut song by American artist Frank Ocean is titled “Novacane.” It was released as the lead track from Nostalgia, Ultra, his mixtape. Ocean, Tricky Stewart, and Victor Alexander wrote the song.

The song tells the one sided love story of Frank Ocean with an adult film actress. After learning that she does not share his love for him, he was devastated because hasn’t been able to feel the way he felt with her with anyone else.

He attempts to forget her by relying on fame and drugs, but it only serves to numb him. Because he needs to keep going back to it, it doesn’t fully cease the anguish.

5. Rushes

“Rushes” is the 16th track from Frank Ocean’s visual album, Endless, released in 2016. Ocean’s ability to create a painful crescendo in response to a broken relationship is seen in Rushes. The misery shown in Rushes is a bitter recall of that sensation.

However, Ocean’s voice is the only ingredient in the song, which is complemented by an electric guitar. It also contains Jazmine Sullivan, a phenomenal vocalist. The song’s tension builds for about three minutes, culminating in a heartbreaking request: “I’ll wake up in a week, wake me up in a week.”

Above all, the sound is powerful, striking, and hits you right in the core.

6. Pyramids

The song “Pyramids” was released as the second single from Frank Ocean’s debut studio album Channel Orange (2012). Ocean wrote the song, which was produced by Malay and Om’Mas Keith.

For good reason, this 10-minute masterpiece towers over Channel Orange. The song is like an entire album within an album, both musically and spiritually. It starts off with a boom before transitioning to a funky hip strip club downtempo rhythm.

However, the song tells the story of a pimp who falls in love with one of his customers. Lyrically, the song uses lengthy metaphors to refer to Cleopatra, pyramids, and strip clubs. Several newspapers commended the song’s ambition and breadth, as well as its lyrical brilliance, and dubbed it “epic in character.”

7. Pink Matter

One of the best Frank Ocean songs “Pink Matter” was released as the second single from Frank Ocean’s debut studio album Channel Orange (2012). The song is about women and how they may be both good and detrimental for a man.

Ideally, purple matter, blue matter, pink matter, and grey matter all have the same origin, gender, sexual orientation, and mental cognition.

But, the narrator is fighting his own self-consciousness in pink substance. In this song, he’s lost in his thoughts, considering many things. At first, he’s doubting the relevance of the brain, asking if it’s really that significant, or if it’s just a protective shield for our minds.

Then he begins to question the value of a woman, wondering if her primary purpose is to breed and provide him with pleasure, rather than to love her.

8. Strawberry Swing

In his debut mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra, Frank Ocean copied tracks from his favorite musicians. Coldplay was one of the artists on the list. So, if you think Frank Ocean just sang over Coldplay’s “Strawberry Swings,” you’d be totally accurate.

However, the “strawberry” isn’t physical. Rather, It’s a metaphor for the bliss of swinging on swings with his childhood sweetheart as a boy.

The cold water represents memories and the things that come with them. His “feet won’t touch the ground” since he has grown up and is no longer able to feel the same way he did as a boy. The alarm-like sounding noise in the backdrop of “It’s such a perfect day” is a revelation that he has awoken and begun to see the world for what it truly is, rather than what it appears to be.

9. Bad Religion

The song “Bad Religion” begins with Frank requesting a cab driver to pay attention to him. The song featured on Ocean’s 2016 album “Blonde.” The song’s lyrics include religious overtones and make references to the universe’s creation.

This song is clearly about his religious struggles as a gay guy. When he speaks of “unrequited love,” he is referring to God himself, not another man. Frank Ocean schooled to love his deity, but those beliefs also imply that his god does not tolerate homosexuality.

To assume that this song might be about a boy who didn’t like him back would be a bit of an insult to its poetic beauty.

10. Swim Good

The second song “Swim Good” from his album Nostalgia, Ultra mixtape (2011) is one of the best Frank Ocean songs. Ocean and producers Midi Mafia and Charles Gambetta collaborated on the song’s composition.

In this track, He’s expressing the anguish and sadness that comes with the termination of a relationship. To clarify, you are in love with her, it must be difficult for you to let her go and you will be miserable without her. But when you do, you feel empty, lost, and virtually nonexistent in the absence of the one you love ( by him saying “when I feel like a ghost no schwayze, ever since I lost my baby”).

Despite its dreary and grim vibe, “Swim Good,” the premiere mixtape single, is a lovely treat. Ocean portrays driving directly into the sea after losing everything.

11. Crack Rock

“Crack Rock” is the 9th song of Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange. The amazing aspect of this song is the contradiction he establishes between drugs and love as two addictive things that frequently commingle.

Ocean explained how his granddad affected the record in an interview with The Guardian:

For a song like Crack Rock, my grandfather, who had struggled to be a father for my mum and my uncle … his second chance at fatherhood was me. In his early-20s, he had a host of problems with addiction and substance abuse. When I knew him, he was a mentor for the NA and the AA groups. I used to go to the meetings and hear these stories from the addicts – heroin and crack and alcohol. So stories like that influence a song like that.

However if people do not resonate with voices about addiction, perhaps they will if they are immersed in a song as lovely as this. Above all, this song is one of the best Frank Ocean songs in terms of lyrics.

12. Chanel

Chanel was published as part of an episode of Frank Ocean’s Beats One radio program “blonded RADIO” on August 1, 2017. The lyrics discuss Frank Ocean’s rise to celebrity and what it means to him.

It didn’t take long for fans to identify this song as one of Frank’s best, which is why it’s one of the 15 best Frank Ocean songs. Ocean points out the love connections with persons of both sexes in numerous occasionsof his songs.

He also considers how he is seen by both genders and finds it difficult to trust others as a result of their improper impression of him.

13. Self Control

At first Frank Ocean released this track as a single and later included it on his 2016 album “Blonde.” The song starts with a sample of Josie James’ 1978 single “Ain’t Givin’ Up No Love.” The song appears to be about the loss that comes as a result of poor timing in love. Ocean makes this clear in the first few lines of the song.

Moreover, Frank is attempting to suppress his affections for a lady he adores. He tries to pursue her despite the fact that she is already in another relationship.

At 01:19, you can listen to Swedish rapper Yung Lean. To sum up, the song is a fantastic summer tune.

14. Nikes

Nikes is the first track on Ocean’s second album, Blonde. Despite the fact that the songs on this album are lyrically incoherent, he remains political and heartfelt. Ocean pays tribute to a number of persons who died as a result of poverty, racial profiling, or drug addiction.

Ocean pays respect to African-American teenager Trayvon Martin, who was murdered in 2012. In the aftermath, Ocean showed his support for Martin by wearing a hoodie identical to the one he wore the night he was shot.

The song borrows the late 1990s artist Princess Superstar’s “Nikes.” This is also the source of the song’s title.

15. Sweet Life

“Sweet Life,” the fifth single on Frank Ocean’s full-length debut, channel ORANGE, is an introspective look at the effects of riches.

Frank addresses the significance of how money and prosperity “numb” individuals to the hardships of the surrounding world in the song. To urge individuals who live in excess to break their cocoon and confront the problems of others less fortunate than them, Frank asks cynically, “Why explore the world when you’ve got the beach?”

“Sweet Life” demonstrates Frank Ocean’s amazing talent as a vocalist and songwriter. He starts with a brief electronic handclap and is quickly joined by a pleasant, jazzy chord progression and a beautiful, minimal keyboard.

Final Words

Frank has established himself as one of our generation’s most brilliant musicians. He is still creating profound, contemplative works. It’s easy to see why Frank Ocean has been praised by giants like Russell Simmons and Stevie Wonder.

His music and words are genuine expressions of raw emotion. The diverse tracks demonstrate his adaptability in crafting continuously outstanding melodies.

Hopefully, this best Frank Ocean song list will inspire you to listen and explore his musical masterpieces.

Let us know which of the best Frank Ocean songs do you like most. Also, share your best Frank Ocean songs that are not present in this list.

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