Frank Ocean - Channel Orange (2012)

Does the 'scene' have a name yet or can we just call it the 'scene,' with quotes.

i think the preferred ilm dickhead nomenclature is "r&b concrète"

nah, that's something else entirely

Lordy.

Meanwhile, Chris Molanphy's latest piece on the charts and urban music is excellent; read and discuss. I post here because of his own concluding paragraphs:

On this week's upcoming album chart, Chris Brown is expected to be ushered out of the No. 1 spot by a country album, the Zac Brown Band's Uncaged. But in the media, all eyes are on the album slated to debut at No. 2—Frank Ocean's official debut album Channel Orange, which is expected to move more than 120,000 copies, an impressive number for an artist with no big radio hits to speak of. Like so many best-sellers these days, Ocean's album is getting its boost less from his music than from the news cycle: the press frenzy earlier this month over his revelation that he'd fallen in love with a man when he was younger. It boosted awareness of Ocean broadly and may well have multiplied his album's opening sales.

A hit album is great, but is there any chance we can get this dude a hit on both urban and pop radio to go with it? Like many coastal cultural critics, I am rooting for Ocean for reasons of personal politics. But I'm also rooting for him simply because he's a talented singer who might help bring black music back to the center of the pop conversation, where it belongs.

Frankly I appreciate the honesty from Chris re: personal politics. The sense of being obligated to like it (and therefore being even more disappointed with the end results) is evident here and elsewhere.

i think the preferred ilm dickhead nomenclature is "r&b concrète"

how about "avant la lecher".

A hit album is great, but is there any chance we can get this dude a hit on both urban and pop radio to go with it?

no

reinvigorates R. & B. by flouting the rules of the genre

But, under the mainstream, there’s another cohort gaining popularity. In Toronto, the Weeknd—mostly the efforts of a musician named Abel Tesfaye—released three full-length albums on the Web in 2011 that drove people almost uniformly crazy

Other acts that once would have been called indie are making similar music, such as Chicago’s How to Dress Well and England’s Kindness

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really don't get the kindness thing. they actually stole the melody from the theme tune to eastenders for a track. i mean, they did that.

no way

No, Kindness covered the theme tune. Or do covers count as stealing now?

kindness is really fucking dreadful

he knows lots of people though

Who?

Kindness, he's a nu R. & B. singer.

half the_media and the_club_scene it seems - i was confused about various people cosigning his stuff for a while (and his weirdly high media profile generally) but it a few questions clarified it all

Notwithstanding the dumb, self-contradicting last para, which reads as if it was tagged on by an editor to meet a quota of Lena Dunham references, I don't get why SFJ's main argument is so terrible. He knows and likes a lot of R&B. You're going to read a hell of a lot worse from people who think Frank Ocean is the saviour of R&B and everyone else is just singing about their dicks.

When people talk about Ocean "transcending" R&B that's when you know you're in trouble.

i didnt think of kindness' album as r&b in the same way that HTDW or weeknd's obviously are

You're going to read a hell of a lot worse from people who think Frank Ocean is the saviour of R&B and everyone else is just singing about their dicks.

oh this is true as well

there are so many r&b artists doing odd, highly individual music and going down the DIY/self-released route to do so, and who aren't in the_tumblr&b_scene, and it baffles me that they're not used as reference points

xp Yeah it's a weird example. Kindness is far more influenced by 80s R&B (among other things) than the current variety. There are stronger examples of indie/R&B overlap - The xx even.

to be fair frank ocean basically told people he was transcending R&B at the beginning of his career, just a question of who's credulous enough to follow his lead

xp

what do how to dress well & the weeknd have to do with each other at all

fan base

both have w's in their names

Did I only dream I read a scene profile called 'everybody's learning how to dress well for the weeknd'

right. it's such a thin basis for a year-plus long comparison.

xxp

No, Kindness covered the theme tune. Or do covers count as stealing now?

yeah I wasn't accusing them of theft, just horrified they'd use that theme tune.

Like the writer Sheila Heti and the filmmaker Lena Dunham, Ocean is deciding what it means to talk about friendship, drugs, love, and sex, and is setting the parameters for shame and regret in a world in which failure is simply a way of saying hello.

in a world in which failure is simply a way of saying hello.

what does this actually mean?

Sounds like a line from a Cameron Crowe trailer.

xp Yeah, it's the weakest track on the album. The Replacements cover is great though.

this is like a more boring ryan leslie.

― Know how Roo feel (LocalGarda), Monday, July 16, 2012 6:19 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They seem very different to me -- Leslie more about hooks and beats, Ocean more about storytelling and vocal nuances.

You could say, yeah, nothing is as *exciting* as "Diamond Girl" or "You're Not My Girl" (both of which I love), but not even the "Forrest Gump" stuff is as bad as "Long as you do me right, show me how I'm edible."

SFJ:

R. Kelly released a strong R. & B. album this year called “Write Me Back,” which barely anyone noticed.

It's been out for three weeks and debuted at number five.

yeah... kells is like the one major r&b artist who will still get coverage from all types of critics no matter what

@1000TimesYes

New Frank Ocean is indeed awesome, but here's a quick PSA to remind you that non-hipsters (R. Kelly, Usher) still make better R&B in 2012

wait ushers not a hipster

http://img.perezhilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/usher-stepson-espy-awards__oPt.jpg

^^ collaborates with diplo

the new kellz album did fly under the radar a bit compared to his stature/profile

usher, hrrm, well it is better than frank ocean for sure but...

neither r kelly nor usher made a better album than frank ocean this year and it's not even really close

kells album didn't fly under the radar at all

Usher did, IMO (wouldn't know about Kells)

the usher album has tracks as good as most of the stuff on channel orange but frank's album is an actual ALBUM, as opposed to a bunch of disimilar sounding tracks squashed into a patty

The FO album has problems, but ... are there actually people who think R. Kelly's is better? Like, really?

It's autopilot even by his lazy standards.

maybe that's rockist, idk. but it matters to me in this instance. the scope & flow of frank's album is impressive to me in a way that usher doesn't even approach.

is Frank's more of an album because you can barely remember individual tracks when it ends

the usher album has tracks as good as most of the stuff on channel orange but frank's album is an actual ALBUM, as opposed to a bunch of disimilar sounding tracks squashed into a patty

I don't disagree with this assessment of the difference between the two album's approaches but I have played Usher's squished patty multiple times and mostly enjoyed listening to Frank's coherent vision once and had zero desire to revisit it.

there are (arguably multiple) r kelly and usher albums that are better than channel orange. but neither of them came out in 2012.

def a classic whiney troll, but ultimately plainly incorrect.

Usher did, IMO (wouldn't know about Kells)

― PITILESS LIVE SHOW (DJP), Monday, July 16, 2012 12:35 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

the usher album flew under the radar!? i mean compared to when his albums were preceded by songs as big as "yeah" and "omg" maybe but by any other definition no way.

i think that's a response to my post refuting whiney's tweet

haha yes, I should have quoted