Album Review: Unpeeling Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange

When Odd Future released Nostalgia, Ultra via Tumblr, it was funnily described as “Smooth Ass Music About Bitches, Relationships And Being A Rich Young Nigga…But In A Swagged Out Way.” Stripped to its bare bones, Channel Orange could fit that description. But it’s clearly a different beast than its predecessor.

The differences between the two projects are immediately apparent in album artwork. Both covers prominently feature a bold, lustrous orange, but the orange on the cover of Channel Orange is pure, concentrated. The orange on the cover of Nostalgia, Ultra coats a car and is surrounded by other colors, diluting its intensity. The primary contrast between the covers mirrors the primary contrast between the albums. Nostalgia, Ultra, as implied by its title, is characterized by nostalgia and longing. Accordingly, like the diluted orange of the cover, the Frank Ocean we get on Nostalgia, Ultra is crowded by the images of the past. More frequently reflecting on the present, the Frank Ocean we see on Channel Orange is less blurry, more pointed.

The album begins with the aptly named “Start,” a brief preamble that features laughter, a text message notification, Playstation sounds and music from the Street Fighter 2 character selection screen. This strange cocktail of obscurity, nostalgia, weirdness and joy sets the mood for the experimental landscape of the album. The first actual song is “Thinkin Bout You,” a melancholy song about a lost love. In light of Ocean’s recently released letter, the line, “You know you were my first time, a new feel,” resonates very powerfully. With its catchy hook, distinct bridge and gripping falsettos, “Thinkin Bout You” is formulaically an R&B song. “Sierra Leone,” the following song, doesn’t follow suit. Lacking a chorus and a readily identifiable structure, “Sierra Leone,” is unsettling and brief, yet engaging. Ocean’s varying vocals blend well with the equally varying instrumental, which features a pantheon of fleeting yet distinctive effects.

Ocean returns to familiar terrain on “Sweet Life,” a saccharine and decadent Pharell-produced track that both celebrates and mourns California’s capacity for hedonism. Though the overall song is cheerful, it’s bittersweet by the third verse. Ocean sings, “And the water, is exactly what I wanted/It’s everything I thought it would be /But this neighborhood is gettin’ trippier every day/The neighborhood is goin’ ape shit crazy!” The dark side of young Californian life is explored in further detail on “Super Rich Kids.” Ocean maintains his characteristic introspective lyrics and engaging vocals, but fellow Odd Future member Earl Sweatshirt steals the show with a guest verse that could have been written by a hip Bret Easton Ellis: “We are the Xany-gnashing/Caddy-smashing, bratty ass/He mad, he snatched his daddy’s Jag/And used the shit for batting practice.”

“Super Rich Kids” is followed by “Pilot Jones” and “Crack Rock.” The narrative of “Pilot Jones” isn’t very compelling when compared to the other narratives in Ocean’s catalog: something about the song just feels uninspired. “Crack Rock” is a much stronger track than its predecessor, but it is eclipsed by the scope and ambition of “Pyramids,” a genre-defying song that takes the versatility Ocean displayed on “Sierra Leone” and showcases it extensively. Singing over a protean instrumental that changes as frequently as his dynamic voice, Ocean tells the tale of Cleopatra, a stripper, and her distressed lover. The song ends with a solo from John Mayer. Yes, it’s awesome.

On the latter half of the album Ocean further explores the unrequited love he opaquely alluded to in “Thinkin Bout You.” On “Bad Religion,” using a cabbie as a confessional, Ocean croons about what could have been but never was. “Forrest Gump” details the same unrequited love as “Bad Religion,” but it has a very different take. Singing over a mildly upbeat instrumental, here Ocean sounds less defeated and more amused by the situation. The sentimentality is still there, but the resignation is absent, implying hope, acceptance or both.

Ocean’s failed relationship demands consideration just because of its uniqueness and its publicity, but the real gem of the album’s latter half is “Pink Matter,” a saucy song that somehow manages to simultaneously discuss aliens and reference Dragonball Z while still remaining moving. No one other than Frank Ocean could make that happen. Interestingly, collaborator Andre 3000 contributes both a verse and some guitar work. That’s probably not going to ever happen again.

In the end, Channel Orange is an ambitious and dense project that takes listeners on a journey through Frank Ocean’s enigmatic and imaginative vision of the world. The journey is weird, disturbing, moving, disorienting and beautiful. No, it isn’t a beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy. Pulpy, citrusy, concentrated and unforgivably Cali, Channel Orange is simply orange. Unpeel and enjoy.