page_title: Pyramids (song)
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: Pyramids (song) / Reception
caption_attribution_description: English: The american artist Prince.
context_page_description: "Pyramids" is a song by American singer Frank Ocean, released as the second single from his debut studio album Channel Orange. The song was written by Ocean and produced by Malay and Om'Mas Keith. The track features an uncredited guitar solo from singer John Mayer. On June 7, 2012, Ocean posted a small teaser video featuring a snippet of the song onto his Tumblr account, and released the full, nearly 10-minute song later that day onto his official SoundCloud account. The song explores a narrative of a pimp falling in love with one of his clients. The track lyrically contains several extended metaphors referencing Cleopatra, pyramids, and strip clubs. The song received highly positive reviews and was called epic in nature by several publications, who praised the ambition and scope of the track's length, along with the lyrical merit.
  The song was featured in a teaser for Ocean's then-upcoming album and was released with a cover that featured The Simpsons style characters. The music video was directed by Nabil Elderkin and featured an orange car with an atmospheric background. The song has since debuted on the UK R&B Chart at number 31.
context_section_description: "Pyramids" was received with universal acclaim from music critics. Complex Magazine named it track "song of the week" upon release. Complex later named the song the fourth best song of 2012. Siân Rowe of NME compared the track to Prince's "Purple Rain" and reported that the song "is the kind of track you’ll lose hours and hours of your life to. This week alone, NME has spent at least two days having our minds freaked on by its space funk swirl." Pitchfork's Evan Minsker labeled it a "Best New Track" and wrote that "the song's a 10-minute R&B event, traveling from club banger ancient Egypt ('send the cheetahs to the tomb') to the slow jam strip club ('she's workin' at the Pyramid tonight'). It's a journey well-suited to Ocean's smooth croon." The publication's Ryan Dombal commented, "essentially reincarnates one of the most storied female rulers in history as a six-inch-heeled woman of the night. However, the song doesn't read as an indictment of the last 2,000 years as much as yet another attempt to cleverly level the playing field." The Telegraph's Neil McCormick stated that the track was the "real miracle of the album", noting that while Ocean "can embark on something as flamboyant as Pyramids - a 10-minute, tempo-shifting, minor-chord narrative of Egyptian queens and Las Vegas strippers, marrying Tangerine Dream sequencers and a jazzy John Mayer guitar solo to a rapturous slow jam – and make it all seem to make sense."
  Melissa Locker of Time called it a "tour de force" and "a ten-minute history of R&B, arcing from club thumping beats to a sultry drawn out  jam with Ocean’s voice veering from a velvety croon to an endearingly creaky falsetto." Spin's Marc Hogan declared "this much is clear: Ocean continues to deliver songs that combine the narrative punch of a great singer-songwriter with the stylish flair of contemporary hip-hop." John Hall of The Independent described the song as more new material from the "hardest-working man in hip hop" and that the "10-minute single works its way through every genre of contemporary pop, from club banger to slow jam." Nathan S. of the DJBooth described the song as a sprawling affair, noting that it contains "hazy and ambient cut that manages to weave in soaring guitars and ‘90s funk synths." Alexis Petridis of The Guardian mused that the track seemed ambitious to the point of sounding slightly daft, and that the track was "certainly unlike anything else in current R&B." PopMatters's Brice Ezell stated that all it takes is one listen to 'Pyramids', the shape-shifting opus of channel ORANGE to cement Ocean's status as one of contemporary R&B's vital songwriters.
  John Calvert of The Quietus called "Pyramids" a little "structurally ramshackle though never erratic, it's the type of massive album centrepiece that was inconceivable before The-Dream's stadium-R&B reinvented the genre as a mythological epic." Paley Martin of Most Blunted stated that the track "is so much more than a song; it is an audible baptism, a narrative delicacy, a self-indulgent experience! And you best believe once you press play, this ride will take you to the destination of your choice." Jason Lipshutz of Billboard felt that the real triumph was Ocean's song structure: "verses and hooks collapse onto each other, rhymes pop up out of nowhere, and the singer acts like minutely balancing a 10-minute concept piece is no big deal." Chris Richards of The Washington Post Company described the track as a "righteous funk opus that spans nearly 10 minutes", commented that it "is loaded with metaphorical riddles, drawing parallels between Cleopatra and a 21st-century prostitute. Puzzle over it. Dance to it. All of the above."
  Ocean's Odd Future cohort Tyler, The Creator called it his favorite Ocean song on his Twitter account. The song has over one million plays on Ocean's official SoundCloud account, where the song was released.
  From over 35 outlets, global critic aggregator Acclaimed Music went on to rank "Pyramids" the 10th greatest song of the 2010s. The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop annual critics' poll ranked "Pyramids" a
caption: The song has drawn comparisons to the work of musician Prince.
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