I think Endless purposely existed as a filler record to get Frank Ocean out of his contract so he could independently release Blonde. I think Endless is the mostly-empty commercial counterpart to the emotionally involved and far better record, Blonde.

There is so much to say about Blonde. Even its name bears discussion: at the last minute, the name was changed from Boys Don’t Cry, prompting much confusion about whether the title is spelled “Blonde” or “Blond” and launching the Internet into rife speculation. The answer is simple: it doesn’t matter how you spell it, because Frank doesn’t seem to care, and the name was changed because a certain portion of the population wouldn’t understand that Boys Don’t Cry was a lie.

If anything, Blonde is a love letter to empathetic people. It suggests that boys do cry, that the appropriate response to tragedy is to weep and to mourn, and that we’ve lost something with all of our male posturing. Many musicians have said this in their music, but Frank lives this.

On “Nikes”, a track that couldn’t be considered a protest song even by the staunchest abusers of the term, Frank mourns Travyon’s murder as a black man. Mourns is the appropriate record. “Nikes” sets the bar for the rest of the record to come: almost completely beat-less, with a focus on Frank’s voice, encouraging us to get better at living with each other.

Unlike Kendrick, and perhaps unlike Beyoncé, Frank Ocean isn’t writing protest songs about blackness. He’s writing sad songs about losing our humanity. He’s writing music about empathy.

As good as the music is, that’s what I missed the most about Frank’s musical silence over the past four years. I missed his empathetic perspective.

On “Futura Free”, Frank Ocean spends the last half of the track talking to people on the street. The first half of the song is beautiful, Frank’s voice clearly having grown in the past four years. But in the last four minutes, Frank goes vocal and asks people on the streets about their lives.

For most musicians, moments like that would be throwaways. They’d be there to engineer an emotional response. But with Frank, it’s somehow clear how much he loves people. How much empathy he has for their stories.

That seems to be the driving momentum throughout Frank’s new record: there’s a sadness to it that strikes a chord in so many of us. Every track that feels like it’s about Frank — like “Solo” or the sensational “Self Control” (my favourite track on the record) — also feels like it’s about all of us.

I watched a brief, thoughtful exchange on Twitter yesterday between people talking about the melancholic moods that Frank’s music inspires in them. And it fascinated me that every metaphor described a similar feeling: loneliness in a crowd, that of invisibility. My favourite description was “a beach party in the winter.”

It’s all emblematic of the sensational control Frank has over the listener. Blonde is perfectly paced, with no track that could justifiably be removed — even the vocal interludes have a purpose, although they may be less infinitely re-playable than the more vocally-driven tracks.

Channel ORANGE was a spectacular album, but on Blonde, Frank Ocean has mastered his craft as a songwriter and performer. He’s writing music so far above his peers that it defies genre classification. It’s emotionally charged, powerful music that confronts its listeners with the empathy of its performer. It’s quietly transformative. The message is clear.

Perhaps boys should cry. And maybe we’d be better off if they did.

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Pretty amazing for what started as writer’s block.

These mystical tracks are self-evident from the get-go. The sparse production and airy vocal work of “Fall” and “Snow” feel as if they belong in a fairytale world.

I’m aware that some of you might take that to mean her voice is high-pitched and squeaky, but it’s not that at all. Her voice is lower than many women’s, but the way she sings — using all of her breath — evokes the feeling of being whispered to. Listening to Hannigan’s music feels like discovering a treasure only you and her know about.

Some of this work might be due to Aaron Dessner’s production. As he usually does on a record, Dessner’s created an emptiness with each track here that feels very much like the space occupying much of The National’s music.

On At Swim, that approach largely work. When Hannigan sings that she wants to “swim in your current” on “Undertow”, the production’s sparseness makes it feel like she already is. In “Fall”, the space within the track makes it feel larger than it really is.

It’s a powerful effect; an undercurrent in the music, if you will, that makes it feel more emotionally visceral. “Ora” leaves Hannigan’s voice almost naked on top of a piano, and while most songs fall apart with such minimal construction, the production (and Hannigan’s voice) bring it together.

Like many fairytales, the stories Hannigan tells us aren’t always pretty. “We, the ashes: We spend our days like matches / As we burn our ships as black as / The end, the end,” she sings on “We, the Drowned”. It’s as dark as it is beautiful, as lyrically powerful as the production is spacious.

Perhaps what’s most powerful about At Swim, though, is Hannigan’s awareness of being lost in an undertow. It’s a record about fighting a series of fights that we can’t win.

At one point, Hannigan pleads for us to hang the rich so we can spare the young. The thought is both sobering and damning. Hannigan must know what she asks for could never be.

So much like many fairytales, the scenery is gorgeous, but the ending isn’t pretty. In At Swim, we’re all in deep water. And we’re not going to make it. And any morals of the story will come too late.

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So it might be surprising, then, for you to learn that Kaleo is a distinctly Icelandic band equally inspired by the native folk music of their own country. Folk-inspired Blues tracks like “Way Down We Go” hint at this, but “Vor / Vaglaskógi” makes it pretty clear.

Still, it’s hard to guess their roots most of the time. Tracks like “Automobile” even celebrate North American traditions, like chasing after the perfect car (my European friends tell me that’s definitely not as much of a thing over there). And songs like “Glass House” sound nearly Springsteen-inspired.

You could be forgiven for assuming that Kaleo is the latest in a string of rock bands who want to emulate the fuzzy sound of American rock in the ’70s (blame Wolfmother for kickstarting that craze). But largely because of their distance from it, Kaleo is able to make all this work and feel somehow original.

I actually largely like how the band seems at a loss between who they are and who they want to sound like. That very identity crisis makes them feel more “authentic” than many of those throwback bands usually are.

One of the reason their music sounds so authentic is because of the production: Kaleo’s music uses a resonator to make some frequencies vibrate more than others. It’s a track that makes some ranges sound louder than others on a record. It also simulates that slightly washed-out fuzz sound of the ’70s without attempting to duplicate it in post-production, and it works perfectly.

A/B is guitar rock for people who miss Guitar Hero. It’s riff-heavy, filled with guitar solos, and generally just a ton of fun. I think the last couple tracks aren’t as well-balanced as the first half of the record, but there isn’t much to complain about on A/B — which is a ridiculously fun rock record from a band who’s going to accomplish great things.

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The fact that it relies heavily on a banjo is almost a side note.

Union Duke is a folk rock band from Toronto that sounds like they hail from the Deep South. On almost every track, there’s an inevitable comparison to Mumford & Sons — because they both have the same crossover appeal. But Union Duke remind me more of a more ballsy Avett Brothers.

Not unlike the Brothers, Union Duke has a deep understanding of bluegrass, country, guitar rock, and pop song structures. Even on slower tracks that don’t have the same level of forward motion, like “Baby Don’t Break”, the band sounds authentically country and rock all at once.

There are tracks that are more country than rock, like “Coffee/Whisky”. But they’re balanced out by rock ballads like “Golden Days (I’ve Been Down)” (which you should really watch this incredible live performance of) or “A Brief Romance” that, were it not for the banjo, wouldn’t feel out of place on a Tom Petty-produced Foo Fighters record.

If any track can be called out for sounding like a Mumford track, it’s “Fare You Well”, which appropriated even that band’s stylings. That’s not a complaint: because of their authenticity, Union Duke is better at the style than Mumford & Sons at that sort of music to begin with.

On Golden Days, Union Duke avoids the sophomore album by continuing to write great, inventive tracks. They fill the whole that the Avett Brothers and Mumford stopped filling when they became commercial. And when the album is over, there’s a sense of disappointment that there isn’t more to hear. That alone is proof of Union Duke’s success.

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The three sisters that make up the band are phenomenal singers (although I couldn’t tell them apart with a blindfold on). They sound like they’re both a church choir and a power pop band — which is to say that they easily find the sweet spot between musical intimacy and big, broad hits. And they make it sound so easy!

At their best, Joseph’s songs sound like “Planets”. These are Spartan exercises that use the sisters’ voices as both melody and atmosphere, eschewing the big elements of pop for a more unique (and mesmerizingly beautiful) approach. While the songs are quieter, they’re perhaps the most attention-grabbing on the record.

They pull off similar magic on songs like “I Don’t Mind”, which relies almost entirely on their voices to carry the tracks in lieu of a strong beat. When they bridge pop and folk so effortlessly, they’ve really come up on something special.

But I suspect that they’re going to be popular for indie pop hits like “White Flag”, “Canyon”, or “SOS (Overboard)”. These tracks celebrate their voices and have hints of their folk pasts, but they’re more like giant pop hits that could fill stadiums. That’s not a complaint; these songs work well, but are different stylistically.

There’s something about them that’s clearly reminiscent of bands like HAIM, with the trio of ladies and harmonies singing over swirling indie pop beats. But where HAIM often feels like they’re masterminding their production, Joseph often feels authentically vocal-driven.

By the time the intoxicating “Sweet Dreams” fades out and the album is over, it’s clear that Joseph is a band in between places. In the past, they were a folk band. In the future, they’ll be summer heroes in the indie pop scene.

Now, though? Right now, Joseph is still figuring all this out. I worry that they’ll lose the folk sounds that make them unique one day, but despite that — or perhaps because of it — Joseph’s I’m Alone, No You’re Not is a terrific and unusual pop record.

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