Musically, Frank Ocean is the embodied personification of speaking softly and carrying a big stick. He may have been a quiet, closed door (at least, until recently) when it comes to his personal life, but it's never been hard to tell that he's a tightly closed case of emotion: his critically-acclaimed mixtape nostalgia, ULTRA stars a man reminiscing over 8-tracks which feature songs centering sadly on love and sex lost amongst fields of stoic synth and classic video games and Coldplay. But damn if he doesn't know how to channel all that anguish brilliantly in sound. His lyricism in all of its poignancy is still brusquely simple, and yet it's enough to please the likes of Justin Bieber, Jay-Z, and Kanye West. His style has most notably transformed Beyonce Knowles, whose 4 standout "I Miss You" is her most softly raw performance to date, written by hip-hop rebel band Odd Future's lone singing misfit. "It hurts my pride to tell you how I feel… but I still need to," she both whispers and roars through Ocean's confessional pen. "Why is that?"
So it stands that Ocean—like Nicki Minaj, like Drake—has a reputation that precedes him before his debut album channel ORANGE even eyes the shelves. And it's a reputation splintered last week when he chose to reveal that his first love, likely the paramour for somber love songs like "Miss You" and Nostalgia winner "Strawberry Swing", was actually a man. Yes, the lyrics on ORANGE occasionally veer toward same-sex love, but ORANGE isn't a gay proclamation. It's a sonic record about sex, love, youth, innocence, and what it feels like to lose it. Well-known starter "Thinking About You" still stands in its final version as one of the best R&B songs of the past decade, an echoing world filled with the passionate torment and pleasure of a man hopelessly on the other side of love and wanting that past feeling to last as long as it can, knowing full well that it can't. "Do you not think so far ahead?" he softly wonders, "'Cause I've been thinking about forever." The bulk of channel ORANGE takes place in an even airier, spacey atmosphere than its predecessor, brought back to Earth in the same way that harnessed nostalgia: intrusive interruptions by television noise, voice recordings, dog barks, PlayStation, and slamming car doors.
And it's beautiful, really, how well those sounds greet each other in between Frank's delicate crooning and hazy, funk-tinged finger snappers. The floating "Sierra Leone" is an ode to a childhood love, and "Pilot Jones" is one hell of a trip that feels incredibly retrospective even if it is just about weed. "Monks" seems to shake loose most of the sinking feeling towards the middle of the album by resting on bouncy drums and words about a simple beautiful girl, before drowning all of that in more angst.
"Bad Religion" is the moral focal point, where Frank vents to a taxi driver about his deepest, darkest secret: not able to make another man love him. John Mayer chimes in on guitar for tasteful interlude "White", and Andre 3000 makes a commendable collaboration on "Pink Matter", yet another chance for Ocean to ponder his own existence. All around, ORANGE is expertly produced: it's a master of its own sound, incomparable to any efforts other than nostalgia, or perhaps 808s and Heartbreak, the original black man's emo/ego trip.
But unlike Kanye, this is an inherently sad guy, and that twinge of loss and hopelessness sifts into every song in ORANGE: even when singing about the "Sweet Life" of his paramour, a friend with a housekeeper and a landscaper, there's a pitiful envy, and when envisioning the life of "Super Rich Kids," there's too much nameless wine, too many joyrides, too much coke. As confident as he sounds on "Forrest Gump," he's still chasing someone, and nothing satisfies Ocean's currents more than the pure anguish of not getting what he wants. What he wants more than anything is love, and channel ORANGE opens those emotional floodgates and embodies those ups and downs of inherent loneliness for an hour. Then, just as sudden, it closes up again.
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