Frank Ocean channeled a dead Jenny, instead of orange with his totally weirdo-in-a-bad-way performance at the 2013 Grammys.
Some really poor decision-making led him to sing his love song to Forrest Gump last night, which included a stage show that had way too much going on that made way too little sense.
Ocean was going for poetry, and we just got a fragmented mess of mental backwash.
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It's fine to write a love song about a retarded film character from 1994, but not acceptable to perform it as the mediocre tune you nervously sing in front of the largest audience you'll ever have.
The Grammys are about popular music, and this song is never going to be remotely as popular as its namesake. No matter what the music editors of the internet tell ya, it wasn't edgy or subversive to use it, it was childish.
And worse than picking a strange song to which most people cannot relate, the visuals were ill-conceived. If the "Thinking About You" video indicated anything about Frank Ocean's ability to create a coherent visual narrative, then it's clear that no matter what a cutie this guy is, he needs to stay in the studio. The images projected sort of jogged us through the song's lyrics, and the legs running below Ocean's waist were a decent idea, but all together, the show just didn't come close to working. It made the Carrie Underwood creepy screensaver dress look like a clever endeavor.
Just cause everyone thinks you made the best album of last year doesn't give you full creative license. Ocean's hubris, and the industry's christening of him as the "cool outcast" created a stage monster.
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