Frank Ocean’s song, Pink + White, utilizes some truly genius musical theory concepts and most of them flew right over my head the first few times I heard it. This style is new for this blog, but Frank Ocean still uses some of the same layering techniques to create a ~chill vibe~.
In this song, I’m going to focus on something I haven’t touched much on so far: counting. When I say that deciphering this time signature caused me 15 solid minutes of hair-pulling frustration, I mean it; Frank Ocean did not make this piece with the intention of music analysis, thats for sure. That being said, the time signature is 6/8, which means that there are six eighth-notes in a measure. This makes for a sexy pulse on beats one and four, and, as someone recently said to me, a song that makes you feel sexy is a great song (shoutout Franklyn). The first five seconds follow this pattern of ONE two-three FOUR five-six with a snare drum emphasizing these stressed beats, but something interesting happens in the next phrase (0:05). The time signature calls for Frank to divide his measures into 6 beats, but instead he begins slicing the measure into four equal parts. If anyone here is a visual learner, I encourage you to check out my illustration.
This complicated syncopation usually catches the ear of the listener, but oftentimes its difficult to figure out why exactly a rhythm sounds so, forgive me if I use a technical music term, crunchy. The stressed beats in this song don’t always line up, and the listener is constantly on their toes waiting for the rhythm to resolve into cacophony.
Another aspect of this song that really caught my attention was the interesting key. Honestly, I’m still not really sure if this song is major or minor. The modality of the song depends on three notes, and if these three notes are raised a half-step, the song is major, but if they are lowered a half-step, the song is minor. During the first two measures, the three defining notes are usually lowered, resulting in a minor sound. But then, just as Frank did with the rhythm, he throws a curveball to knock the listener off his/her balance. The next two measures are major. This isn’t a coincidence, the entire rest of the piece follows this exact pattern: two measures of minor, followed by two measures of major, and its emphasized by the melody that Frank sings. This confusion surrounding the key of a piece is so widely used by modern-day classical composers that we even have a term for it: atonality. This means that the music lacks a tonal center or key, and this has an intense impact on the listener. With no singular chord to settle into, we are constantly awaiting a cadence or resolution to each phrase, but to no avail. Instead, we are set wandering through this piece of music without any tonal center to call home.
Overall, this song uses some legitimately impressive 21st century composition tactics such as syncopation and atonality, and I don’t doubt that someone like Beethoven would thoroughly enjoy peering into all of its genius layers. This is a perfect example of how modern-day classical music can mirror pop music, and it really makes me wonder if these parallels are a result of one style inspiring the other, or, more interestingly, if the human mind has naturally developed the yearning for more complicated music on both sides of the musical spectrum. If any of you ever meet Frank Ocean or Johannes Brahms, feel free to ask them.
I really liked the use of the visual in this post. It helped me understand exactly what you were analyzing.
Good analysis! I haven’t listened to a whole lot of Frank, but I’ve been aware of him for a while. I’ll have to give this a look. The way you explain the different technical phenomena is very easy to understand, and does a perfect job of conveying what you’re trying to say.
Ahh yes, this is quite the funky and sexy groove. I’ve never heard this song before, but again reading your analysis really broke down why the piece had that distinct “chill” vibe. Pretty fascinating when you compare it to how classical composers usually used 6/8 to make pieces more elegant or “dancy”