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Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE
Posted: 1/8/2021 by Sam Bailey ( See All) Show:(2012) This is the beginning of a series of Frank Ocean reviews, spanning his mostly mainstream discography from 2011's "nostalgia,ULTRA" to "Blonde", his most recent work.
"channel ORANGE" is a love letter to pop culture at its core, emulating a good movie or satisfyingly bingeworthy TV show in its pacing, lyrical detail, and lush production all over. This album is Frank's height to most, representing the perfection of whatever he was trying to achieve in 2012 with his record label and his artistic vision alike. It's incredibly unfair that an album like this doesn't feel like a roller coaster, but all that means is "channel ORANGE" has zero lows, no skips, not a single miss of a song, beginning to end. Starting the album off with "Thinkin Bout You", a low-key R&B ballad that manages to talk about fighter jets and beach houses in landlocked states within the same verse. Even the filler between the first true song and the next one on track 5, "Sweet Life", is incredibly well thought out, leading to yet another track with lush and brassy production, one of two scathing reviews of American greed on the album, which is track 7 with Earl Sweatshirt and my favorite on the album, "Super Rich Kids". Despite being the second longest song on the album, "Super Rich Kids" is a song that goes down too smoothly, one that's too easy to put on repeat just to hear Frank's incredible vocals and Earl's sludgy delivery of his verse. Again, the pacing of the album is cinematic, and "Pilot Jones" to "Crack Rock" solidify that vision, leading into the prolifically long "Pyramids", a gorgeous song with a fun, bouncy, club-inspired synth lead. Track after track, Frank does not miss a single good song, each one deserving a review of its own. By the end, after a John Mayer feature and somehow an Andre 3000 feature that Frank must've done some kissing up to the label to get seeing how much of a recluse 3000 is, the album comes to a close (and a sweet Tyler, The Creator feature on the bonus track of the CD if you've got it). Overall, "channel ORANGE" represents the time it was made in, much like Frank represents the hopeless and unrequited romantic in all of us. Stay tuned for "Endless" and "Blonde"!
Recommended If You Like: R&B, The Weeknd's early stuff, Odd Future, Andre 3000
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