Inside Music with Melinda Newman

Frank Ocean conjures up strippers in new 'Pyramids' video

Is it all a dream?

By Melinda Newman Monday, Sep 17, 2012 3:18 PM

Frank Ocean in "Pyramids"

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Frank Ocean isn’t exactly known for his coherent music videos, he’s worn a panda mask in one, for goodness’s sake. Add one more to the WTF pile with the nearly 8-minute clip for “Pyramids,” the newest single from "Channel Orange."

The Nabil-directed video opens with Ocean shooting up a bar (though we never understand why). He then hops on his motorcycle and rides through the rain. Then, just like that, he’s in the desert and it’s the next day and it’s sunny. He’s flashes back to a strip club, The Pyramid, where the girl he has just spent the night with works.

[More after the jump...]

It’s a gauzy NSFW clip that never really quite gels, which makes sense if Ocean’s in a dream state throughout most of it. As Ocean hangs out in the strip club, we see the girls go through various scenarios, including whipping and working the pole with various body parts. Did anyone bring the Purell?

Throughout, Ocean, who performed on "Saturday Night Live" on Sept. 15, seems to be almost sleepwalking. The fugue state continues as he climbs back on his motorcycle and a neon pyramid appears out of nowhere, but it apparently is where John Mayer lives, since he comes out from the back for a tasty, spare blues solo and then disappears again. Is it only a mirage?

Come up with your own theories about the video. We’re sure Ocean would approve.

Is it all a dream? What do you think?

frank ocean [pyramids] from christopher francis ocean on Vimeo.

Related Searches: frank ocean, Pyramids, John Mayer, nabil, channel orange, Saturday Night Live

Duke

I actually thought that John Mayer had sold his soul in the video (or more so, was one who had been consumed hedonism). That it was more of a cautionary tale to Ocean as he rift his guitar. I thought this video spoke about losing yourself in a overly hedonistic lifestyle and that the stripers and Mayer are a vision of souls lost as he rides through the desert. Not a religious nut, that's just my interpretation.
September 18, 2012 at 12:20AM EST Reply to Comment
- J I could agree with that. I think most people are missing the first part- that he takes several shots of Absinthe (anyone who knows about it, knows that the way he, and most people, drinks it is not the original way- it was a show/parlour trick to cover the poor taste of bad quality Absinth that was coming out of the now Eastern Block areas like Croatia and Estonia etc...I can't remember at this point the original source of the sugar on fire version). So the dreamlike state and whatnot are perfectly in light with the whole "thujone-induced dream state" (although the thujone is arguably a placebo...but that's a whole other story).
  March 24, 2013 at 11:52AM EST