In 2016, the eagerness for a new Frank Ocean record had transformed from healthy anticipation into irritable impatience. For four years Ocean had made repeated promises about the record’s release date, only for him to miss his own deadlines. Fans desperate for new music began mocking his tardiness on social media. Ocean responded in kind by stamping all the record’s missed released dates on a library card.

next time frank ocean drops an album everyone wait like 12 weeks before they buy it.. just so he knows what it’s like — pharrell's junebug (@angelAmyV) April 8, 2018

Then in August that year, Blonde was finally released, and it sounded … weird. It’s an album that on first listen doesn’t necessarily sound like a classic – there are so many layers of vocals and instrumentation. The Guardian’s five-star album review at the time said it was one of the most “baffling, contrary and intriguing records put out by a major pop star – not just this year, but any year”.

Its magic was that it contained puzzles, both in its production and lyrical content – a lead vocal line that had been obscured would suddenly step forward from the shadows, three-quarters of the way through a song. As fans and critics gave it more of their time, a consensus began to emerge that it was Ocean’s greatest work. By December, Time, the Atlantic and Vulture had all declared it the record of the year. It’s hard to think of another record so rewarding to those willing to give it the time.

The album with its alternative title. Photograph: PR

Cole Cuchna, the journalist and music obsessive who makes the podcast Dissect, has given Blonde a lot of his time. The third season of Dissect is an extravaganza of Frank Ocean deep dives. There will be an entire 11-episode season on Blonde preceded by a six-part miniseries on Channel Orange, Ocean’s debut. On top of that, Cuchna is releasing bonus episodes with songs and interviews that don’t otherwise fit into the schedule (the first of which, focusing on early mixtape tracks There Will Be Tears and Swim Good, has already been released) – and a separate hour-long documentary giving a more general overview of Ocean’s life and work. Cuchna isn’t sure exactly how much Ocean based analysis he’ll end up producing, but believes it’ll be around 10 hours, a similar length to the Beatles’ landmark documentary series Anthology.

Speaking on the phone from his home where he is still writing and recording episodes for the series, Cuchna says only by going into that level of depth can you begin to unpick a record so rich in detail. “It’s hard to write about, it’s so nuanced and complex,” Cuchna says. “This approach is the only way you’re going to get to something worthwhile, it’s just a record you have to spend a lot of time with.”



He says that some of the episodes will focus more on production while others will go line-by-line, exploring the narratives and themes emerging in the lyrics. He’s excited about the episode on Super Rich Kids, about a character that starts his days on the roof and by the end of the songs falls to his death. “It has all these overtones of what it means to be born into wealth,” he says.

Cuchna says he’s “obviously” doing two episodes on the 10-minute Channel Orange track Pyramids because it’s “a song that tells is essentially the history of the black woman – from royalty in Egypt to the present day – dealing with issues in America”.

Cole Cuchna: ‘It’s me proving that these are seminal works.’ Photograph: Spotify

In past seasons, which have focused on records by Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar, Cuchna has had a fairly large trove of interviews with the artists themselves to draw upon, but Ocean has barely spoken to the press in the past six years – meaning that for Blonde at least there’s little of the artist’s own interpretation of his work avaliable.

“I don’t think it’s going to be problem,” says Cuchna, unfazed. “When it comes to analysis, it’s about 80% me just digging into the actual music – there’s not too much to draw from, it’s just breadcrumbs, but I quite like that.”

The four albums he’s focused on so far have been released in the past decade, and Cuchna says he purposely chooses recent works. His overall aim is to recontextualise these albums, not just as recent classic but part of the overall popular music canon, as worthy of investigation as Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or Thriller.

Cuchna says: “It’s me proving that these are seminal works, that they’re the best representations of culture at this particular time. Looking back in 50 years, they’re what we’re going to be remembering. These are great albums but they’re also cultural artefacts; they can be studied.”