Nobody does Frank Ocean songs quite like the man himself, or so we thought until now. While on tour in Milwaukee, Lorde performed a cover of his 2016 track "Solo," putting her own mesmerizing spin on the stripped-down, introspective album cut.
Though she starts off nailing the song's rapid cadence, she slows down the final chorus, wringing every drop of drama from Ocean's celestial and apocalyptic lyrics. It's a fitting choice for Lorde after she made headlines for her Grammys outfit, a Jenny Holzer poem featuring the lines "The reckoning will be hastened by the staging of seed disturbances. The apocalypse will blossom." The pointed words may have been related to the Grammy Committee's reported decision to not allow the singer to perform solo this year despite being the only woman nominated for Album of the Year.
In an interview with New Zealand publication The Spinoff, Lorde explained that Ocean's Blonde influenced her 2017 record Melodrama. Speaking about her song "The Louvre," she said, "I feel like in this sort of post-Blonde landscape, we can all sort of do whatever we want in terms of instrumentation." Lorde also recently released a remix of her track "Supercut" featuring tourmates Run the Jewels. Ocean, meanwhile, may be appearing on the upcoming album from Rich the Kid.
Check out the powerful cover above, read our collection of Ocean's most essential interviews, and watch our video on Lorde's ascent to superstar status below.
