Frank Ocean - Channel Orange (2012)

yep.

call him post-Pharrell though.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, July 9, 2012 9:08 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://potholesinmyblog.com/how-not-to-respond-to-frank-oceans-sexuality/

Do not refer to Frank as gay or bisexual.

― frank o'sin (Eric H.), Monday, July 9, 2012 1:33 PM Bookmark

I kind of wish the order of these two posts were reversed.

A+

haw

ha!

I do feel bad for copy editors and designers trying to condense Ocean's ambiguites.

frank is on fallon tonight

i always suspected that about jimmy

al!

this is on itunes at midnight

flattered ship pulled off a dumb Alfred-style joek

Stream is up http://frankocean.tumblr.com/post/26885717440/channelorange

waiting to hear the whole thing before i make any comments but so far it's stunning stuff. on bad religion right now and really impressed.

horrible album art

oh, this shit really comes in itunes as channel ORANGE?

This is like a new album of Prince in his orime.

Um, no.

it may be like a new album of prince in his recently purchased vintage japanese textile http://orimetextiles.com/

Some great and some not-so-great stuff just like the first album, but imo the great stuff here is greater.

otm xp

Andre 3000's verse sounds like Frank called him up at 4 in the morning and said "go".

yeah, i really don't hear prince here as much as marvin and stevie

http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/video/Frank-Ocean:-Bad-Religion/1408858

The Prince part is the combination of emotional sincerity with audacious narratives.

Just woke up from a super intense dream about Frank Ocean asking me to provide a beat for his new record.

actually got pretty excited by the rapturous praise i'd heard about this but i'm halfway through and it's really not changing my mind about frank ocean. i find his voice really flat and affectless.

That Potholes list is both OTM and practically impossible to follow for any journalist writing about this.

when i click the potholes link nothing comes up? just a blank brown page with a couple of random album covers

obv this is moot now the album's out there but i felt a bit uncomfortable at how the talk about frank ocean's sexuality refused to die down, from every conceivable angle. expected and maybe even understandable, i was just thinking back to when i came out and how i felt the worst thing would be people making it into a massive deal when it wasn't - the idea of people constantly talking about it and analysing it (ie gossiping) was a bit of a nightmare. i really sympathise with him over that.

this album is just getting dull now though, "pyramids" really stood out as a highlight and i didn't even love it that much

I'm really enjoying it. it's so much jazzier than I expected, rhodesy and loose. there's something almost jarring about the songs oscillating between sung choruses and spoken portions, lists being reeled off, but it's pretty commanding. like almost a Gil Scott-Heron kinda thing?, the vocabulary of it, not that I think it sounds like a Gil record (actually Monks just started, this totally sounds like a Gil record!).

fallon performance is grrrreat.

obv this is moot now the album's out there but i felt a bit uncomfortable at how the talk about frank ocean's sexuality refused to die down

well...it's been six days

Haven't listened to it, but apparently there's a sample from La Jetee which, if so, <3 this man so much.

Hmm...so far I'm kinda with lex, though more positively inclined. Still I think a lot is being hugely read into this now as opposed to this leaping out on its own merits. "Sierra Leone" and "Super Rich Kids" are cool. Jody Rosen said something last night about how this is like seventies Marvin in terms of taking a basic groove and making a song out of it through force of performance and that's not inaccurate but it's also not as remarkable as it could be.

Except Marvin was one of the greatest singers ever and Ocean... isn't.

A key fucking distinction!

I'm with you two so far. The two leaked tracks had already made me wonder whether I overrated last year's release.

Honestly the more this goes on the more I'm locking into the background music instead of his singing. And it's not that the music is some out of nowhere amazing thing, but it's just nice to float along with, like the "Pilot Jones"/"Crack Rock" combination.

this album is just getting dull now though, "pyramids" really stood out as a highlight and i didn't even love it that much

And I gotta say, Lex VERY OTM with this point. It starts and all of a sudden there's a different energy that's been near absent otherwise.

"Thinkin Bout You" is great so far, dude's singing voice is basically like "imagine if Drake was tolerable"

except for his falsetto, which is has this weird driving fragility that makes it very interesting

lol is "Fertilizer" a joke

i def prefer his falsetto to his normal singing voice

i'm not sure the songs are that interesting

i've never seen an album so unanimously rhapsodised about and i'm just confused cuz it's not like i hate it, i just don't think it's interesting at all

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=5699

but then this year is a new low in the amount of hyped music i fuck with tbh

On "Sierra Leone"... I am really digging this groove, it's like an aural cardigan

"Sweet Life"... so far the actual songs on here seem to be designed as throwback comfort food

Then it gets a running shove, past ludicrous and into sheer camp, when you realize it’s the same plot as Disney’s Aida.

aaaaaaaaaaaahhhahahahahahaha omg yes!

xp it would help if the voice was throwback comfort food as well - like that's pretty much what the last two r kelly albums have been but kellz' voice elevates them beyond it at their best, and at their most rote at least ups the comfort levels significantly

"Not Just Money" why are the interludes given names like they are important things you'll want to go back to and play in isolation ("ooh 'Not My Money' is my JAM, don't front!")

"Super Rich Kids" I would rather listen to "Benny and the Jets"

xp: that may be but honestly, fuck R Kelly

that ignorant-ass molesting asshole is getting zero percent of my time/money if I can help it

"Lost" is kinda nice, works as a good follow-on to "Pyramids"