Frank Ocean isn’t exactly one for the traditional route. And on the night of July 11 he shocked everyone worldwide by giving his first ever televised performance on Late Night … AND releasing his first full-length major label album, channel ORANGE, in digital form a week before its scheduled release. The album streamed for the next 24 hours from Ocean’s Tumblr, and the Twittersphere was sent into a frenzy, keeping #channelorange, #badreligion (the song performed on Jimmy Fallon’s show), and Ocean himself trending for the whole day and some of the next.
Ocean, of rap group Odd Future fame, has been flying under the radar for some time but has been gradually pulled into the spotlight with his vocal contributions to Kanye West and Jay-Z’s “Watch the Throne.” BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe featured channel ORANGE as his album of the week last week and spoke to Ocean about the record. Ocean explained it had been the plan all along to release a week early, both to almost mirror the slow release that “Watch the Throne” did, but also to “let the music speak for itself for a second.” And it certainly is doing that.
The album was created to be an album — it runs all the way through seamlessly from the title track “Start” to the final track “End.” And while I would encourage listening to channel ORANGE as such, there are some standouts, including our featured track “Pyramids.” It’s a 10-minute epic first single that’s been available online since June, and while the song does have a natural break at about the halfway mark, you’ll probably struggle to tear yourself away.
The first half is a little sassier, with the second a toned down and almost dreamlike experience, but the soft caramel voice of Ocean keeps the emotional vibe of the album secure throughout this track. The honesty with which Ocean sings, raps, whatever you want to call it, invests us in the story of “Pyramids,” as we find ourselves lost along with Cleopatra. But the themes of channel ORANGE stretch far from this tale of prostitution through to Ocean’s brutally sincere lament of unrequited love in “Bad Religion,” making it one of the more varied and original albums I’ve come across in recent memory.
Even without Frank Ocean’s recent letter opening up about his personal life you can feel a real connection to this man. His heart and soul is in every second of this record, a pure, innovative piece of music that stands out starkly in the current world of popular music. I know, I know, I sound like an old lady talking about “kids these days,” but if more people were making true music like Frank Ocean, I wouldn’t have to be so cynical.