Album Review: Frank Ocean-Channel Orange

Although I tend to be primarily a fan of metal and rap, I am open to all types of music. I like to branch out and try listening to different stuff. Sometimes I dig it, other times I don't. Frank Ocean is about as far out of my normal musical listening habits as you can get, but his debut full-length Channel Orange made a solid impression on me.

I became aware of Frank Ocean through his singing and occasional rapping work with hip-hop collective OFWGKTA. The hook on "She" off Tyler, The Creator's Goblin last year struck me immediately and was my first exposure to Ocean's talent. I ignored his debut mixtape nostaliga.ultra last year for whatever reason, but I decided to check out Channel Orange because of his work with Odd Future and the very positive reception it had both critically and from the general public. Channel Orange quite simply works due to Ocean's amazing voice. His voice is just absolutely stunning. His vocal capabilities and wide range is what distinguished this from most R&B and is the main reason that Ocean grabbed me as a listener. Like I mentioned earlier, This is normally not my cup of tea musically, but Ocean is just such a diverse talent that it standouts out from any other R&B artist I've ever heard. The highlight of Channel Orange is without a doubt the ten-minute long, grand-scale epic "Pyramids". Ocean displays everything he has to offer as an artist from rapping to crafting great hooks to immense musical transitions to hitting every possible vocal range flawlessly over the course of a ten-minute song that tells two separate stories (The first half is about Cleopatra in Ancient Egypt cheating on a man while the second half is about a pimp and a stripper he refers to as Cleopatra). I know it's still early in his career, but he is going to have a hard time topping "Pyramids", It's absolutely brilliant. "Pyramids" is far from the only highlight on Channel Orange. "Super Rich Kids" is one of the more abstract songs on here with a lot of very down-tempo rapping from Ocean and a uncharacteristic yet still very effective verse from Earl Sweatshirt. "Sweet Life" is lively and catchy, "Thinkin Bout You" is a thoughtful, sincere love song, and "Bad Religion" is a low-key, piano-driven, emotionally powerful track. The one issue with Channel Orange is the amount of filler. There are a lot of songs that take away from the overall quality of the album. The 5-6 lackluster tracks somewhat offset the 6-7 fantastic ones.

Channel Orange is a refreshing change of pace and just about the only R&B has clicked for me as a listener. I don't listen to R&B at all, but this album had a surprising amount of appeal to me and it just flat-out works. Frank Ocean is an excellent singer and his music is full of honesty and emotion. The songs that work on here are fantastic, but unfortunately the volume of throwaway tracks keep this album from being truly great. Frank Ocean is an artist on the rise and if he can make an album full of quality material, Then he is capable of making something special.

3.5/5 Stars
Standout Tracks
1.Pyramids
2.Super Rich Kids (feat. Earl Sweatshirt)
3.Thinkin Bout You