Channel Orange
by Frank Ocean

From Mercury TOP 100 COMMENTER 12/29/2012 16:47 | #59279 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Overhyped, overrated, underrated, ignored, I'd like to point out that all MEANS NOTHING. Just go on YouTube or whatever and listen to some tracks and make up your own mind. I heard about this from Pitchforks glowing review. And then I listened to some stuff, and it sounded amazing. Then I bought the album and I listened to it several times. I've decided it is masterful. It's smooth and flows and all the elements of the album mingle incredibly. "Bad Religion" and "Thinking about you" are some stand outs, but again the whole record is fabulous. Huge fan! It just hits that good spot musically where it all makes sense. If you wanna hear a badass modern incarnation of Stevie and Marvin, this dude is great for that. But really he is his own man and his own style and this record can stand in its own 2 feet. Best album of year that I've heard and only in my opinion.

From Hayden TOP 100 COMMENTER 08/18/2012 17:56 | #48794 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Grower of the year. It's a really chill album. I find myself playing this in the morning when it's raining, with a cup of coffee. It might be a weird comparison, but he's like the Stevie Wonder of our time (if Stevie wonder was in Wu-Tang or sumthin). This is the only actual album I've purchased a physical copy of this year so far too.

Super Rich Kids & Sweet Life are my favourites, and despite that obvious filler at some parts, it's a pretty solid album. 90/100

I think my first comment here is not representative of how I feel about the album now, so let me try again...

I've been trying to understand what caused me to change my opinion on this, and I think it connects to what I noticed about my music listening in general - initially I give far more attention to music, and even when I like the lyrics, I won't like the song as a whole if I have a problem with the sound. But then after a while, my attention switches from one to another (I get used to the sound I guess), and I start doing the opposite - I often start loving songs with what I feel are good lyrics, even if the music isn't "all that".

So this here is a very mellow, laid back album, that plenty of people will find quite simply - boring. I did too for a while (esp. with the first half). Now, I don't wanna say that the lyrics here are so amazing, that made me have a complete "180", and that I now love the album because of that... However, once my attention switched more to the lyrical subject matter, I guess I not only "forgave" the album for those "too" mellow, uninteresting moments (that I thought it had), but I even started to cherish them in those cases where I felt they fit each other. In particular Super Rich Kids, whose mellow nature is very appropriate in relation to its subject matter and lyrics. I mean, the way Earl delivers his verse is pretty much the point of the song.

Sorry if this ^^ is confusing. It made sense in my head :S...

Anyway... To sum up my feelings about this: I still think the first half is not as good as the second, but there's good stuff there too. Lyrics are good throughout, laid back production fits them nicely, and Frank's voice is great.
My favourite moments on the album:
-The ending of Pyramids
-Earl's verse on Super Rich Kids
-Andre's verse on Pink Matter
-"If it brings me to my knees, it's a bad religion" (Edited)

Frank Ocean is overly ambitious on this album, concidering how much filler there is on the album. Pyramids is one of the greatest songs released in a long time, Thinkin' Bout You is a soothing R'n'B tune and Lost's groovy beat gets me everytime, but over all the album seems overlong and uneven. It's good to see an ambitious young man here, but to the praise it has received has been a bit over the top. But he has definitely laid the foundation for a new wave of electronic hip-hop-R'n'B. But actually it bowels me that the album bacame so mainstream, because the structure of the songs and his lyrics aren't what you normally call approachable.

From mickilennial 07/10/2013 11:40 | #80925 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I honestly don't know or care much about anything Odd Future related. I'm not going to lie, the enormous hype relative to people like Frank Ocean, Tyler the Creator, and Earl Sweatshirt is dumbfounding as from what I feel is anything explementary. Though, I do try to be ahead of the curve when being aware and I admit this is a year where I was mostly far behind due to a minute apathy for media beyond cinema. That said, Frank Ocean isn't certainly bad, but is he great on Channel Orange? I am thinking no for my own opinion on the matter. Frank Ocean has slick production yes, but he also has a matter of style and songwriting that get's criticized when it is released by R. Kelly, Usher, and Chris Brown. Sure, each of those musicians don't have the drive to implement influences that Frank Ocean does and tend to release the same song twelve times per record. Perhaps I'm a little biased in regards to contemporary R&B, but that's because its devoid of much soul in the first place and is partially responsible for killing the soul in soul music.

Channel Orange isn't a bad record, especially on songs like Pyramids, which features a overladen synthetic funk composition under Ocean's run-of-the-mill vocals. If this is what Frank Ocean has to offer then I'm honestly not interested. Of which is fine as he has plenty fanbase to go through and has a place in this era of soulless consumerist contemporary R&B. In the meantime I'll actually listen to records with soul, both nostalgic and progressive.

I'll pass on Channel Orange.