Frank Ocean - Channel Orange (2012)

I'm fairly certain that I like Frank Ocean as a person much better than Drake or Abel Tesfaye, but so far I'm still reaching for their records over Ocean's.

luckily there are people making great r&b right now who are none of these people!

love love love this album today/this morning right now at 4 am.

and like, whatever, lex, this is a damn good neosoul album. it is not vague fadey hazey mood stuff a la Drake and Weeknd which you normally decry.

j0rdan is talking about loose songwriting and fluid movement between tracks - more like the sequencing and structure of Baduizm or Mama's Gun or VooDoo. (not necessarily saying this is on that level but that is what he meant by "bleed into each other and fade into a soft glow" - i often forget when tracks end and begin while listening to early Erykah and most of D'Angelo. and it's not because it's bad music or because it's hazy or vague.

the vague fadey hazey stuff you decry is usually hazy and vague sonically and lyrically - the weeknd & drake - and I don't love either of them, although i enjoy them both slightly more than you do - and whatever channelORANGE is, it isn't that.

and soft glow would never describe drake or the weeknd anyway.

i mean, look, i'm totally fine with you not liking FO or channelORANGE but if we're gonna mount critiques can we not do it on the grounds that it somehow shares DNA or other vital characteristics with the weeknd and drake? because other than the fact that all three share a non-hip hop critical audience and p4k audience, Frank doesn't have much in common with the other two besides badly conceived trendpieces from a few years back that declared them musical saviours or PBR&B or whatever and that is admittedly stupid, but it's not what's going on on this album.

saying "this thing has the same flaws as those things" doesn't mean i'm equating them - they're not the same thing, and i wouldn't really include drake in the overly fadey hazey criticism anyway (he has a knack for a hook, or basic-level catchiness anyway, that the other two don't)

i still think that voodoo is a good comparison for this structurally.... it's maybe if there was like some imaginary LP that bridged brown sugar and voodoo

o_O fuck does this album have to do with d'angelo, y'all are tripping

No one is saying its as good as. We are saying it is more like D'Angelo than The Weeknd. It's built around grooves that flow into each other that nevertheless form distinct songs. One of its attractions is an overall 'vibe'. Etc.

Hazy and vague can be a bad thing in the case of the Weeknd (if you think so) while still being a good thing about channel ORANGE. I mean, again hazy and vague are not the words I would use but whatever aesthetic decision we are talking about functions differently for Frank than it does for these other folks IMO and I assume Jordan's and they function similarly to how they do on D'Angelo records or Erykah records hence the repeated 'this is more of a Neo-Soul album' statements from me and rev and J0rdan

I dunno, I think CO is a lot more song-driven and less groove-oriented than Voodoo. xp

It works in a way that's closer to, say, Mama's Gun. Not as sui generis in its construction as Voodoo, with the songs as more discrete entities with quite differing styles from one another but still playing off of the surrounding songs.

We are saying it is more like D'Angelo than The Weeknd.

that may be true but essentially meaningless. and even if the comparison is "structural" (which i don't hear either, whether we're talking song structure of sequencing or what), "some imaginary LP that bridged brown sugar and voodoo" is a bridge too far.

only neo soul vibe i get off this is when he occasionally sounds like musiq solchild

haha, yes that comparison makes sense to me.

OK, so I'm definitely guilty of (initally, at least) expecting this album to be something it isn't, what with most of what I'd previously known abt Frank Ocean's music coming from thinkpieces and whatnot that lump him in with The Weeknd, Drake, etc. Yes, this is much closer to neo-soul than either of those are--there isn't the emphasis on immediate hooks that, despite their "hazy, fadey" vibe (I like that), definitely informs Drake's music and also (I would argue) a lot of Tesfaye's as well. Melodically, Ocean's songs sound rather meandering to me, a characteristic of neo-soul, perhaps, and not a bad thing, but again, not quite what I was expecting. I'm still at a much earlier point in my relationship with this record than most of you are, though, and I take it as encouraging that even if it hasn't knocked me out, I'm still compelled enough to return to it (gonna cue it up just after this Tig Notaro comedy record finishes, in fact).

Not sure why people are getting their knickers in a twist about what this record is/isn't about...certainly its an album I wanna go back to (for 'Thinking Bout You' alone)...there's enough to suggest that there is a definite talent here...lyrically I think he's underrated...on 'Super Rich Kids' he's probably given the best description of being blinded by the bling lifestyle (amazing shower heads, maids, fucking all day and sunbathing)....and musically it at its best it has me reaching for my thesaurus...ethereal, elegiac and quite spiritual...I dunno but I get a black Jeff Buckley vibe about it...almost an r&b 'Grace'...let's hope he doesn't go swimming...

I'd be more worried about him drowning in hype. I can see loving the album, I can see not giving a shit about it, but I'm hoping his best stuff has yet to come.

I'm in the "not giving a shit" camp but, again, this is his first album.

second album really, but yeah it's still a very young career

yeah I guess I should consider it a second album since the mixtape means a lot to me

black jeff buckley is the name of kanye's 7th LP

Black American Hongro

I'm not mad at the Musiq Soulchild comparison.

i'm delighted to see that my post set off a series of such fantastic posts in defense of the album

rev i think you are definitely right that i was going in with expectations about how it would sound & i'm enjoying the album more & more as they wear off. sounds like my xp with this album is very close to jer's. i had only heard pyramids, read a couple things on ilx, and was totally caught off guard. altho i wouldn't consider myself to be "people who want r&b to be first and foremost about sonic innovations" i do find it striking how stripped down a lot of it is. sometimes it works but i'm still bored by a lot of stuff on here. some songs have grown on me to an insane degree tho, particularly "forrest gump" i think that might be song of the year

would be interesting to know how folks line up as far as their appreciation (or even familiarity) w/ nostalgia ultra and how much they like channel orange.

like, NU was top 3 of last year for me. and I think CO is a good record, but it leaves me a little cold for some reason. there are high points, for sure, but even they don't grab me like Strawberry Swing, We All Try, Lovecrimes, There Will Be Tears, Dust and esp. Swim Good and Songs For Women did off the first one.

I think expectation/anticipation for channel orange messed me up a little bit on this. THAT SAID, I *still* feel like i can listen to nostalgia and find new things to like, so obviously CO deserves much more time and many more spins

I just had a mildly horrifying thought re: phrasing - Can you imagine how much less affecting these songs would be if instead of FO, it was my stronger-voiced mans Trey going all vibrato-monster on them?

― Cap'n Hug-a-Thug (The Reverend), Saturday, 29 September 2012 18:56 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

love this post

Cavils aside, Thinkin' Bout You >>>>>>>>>>>>>> There Will Be Tears

yeah that's probably true. Tears was the one i wasn't so sure about putting in there. though you could probably convince me Thinkin' is better than a couple others on my list. hey, i was on a roll...

Tbh, I wasn't really that hot on Nostalgia, Ultra and Channel Orange really took me by surprise. I liked a few songs alright ("Lovecrimes" was the best imo, "Novacane", "Songs For Women", and I eventually came around to "Swim Good"), but I didn't really spend much time or care strongly about the album and the rewrites of "Electric Feel" and "Hotel California" just felt ridiculously unnecessary and kind of put me off the whole project.

Even "Thinking About You" didn't really click with me until I heard it on the album. "Pyramids" was the first Frank Ocean song I heard that I immediately loved. So while I was hoping it would be a good album (especially after the letter and watching him perform "Bad Religion" on Fallon) my expectations coming in weren't really that high.

tbh I kind of feel like Pyramids is the best song of the year so far. I probably should get around to checking the whole album out sooner or later

probably!

yeah "pyramids" is like my favorite song of the year, that and "running" by jessie ware

it's pretty perfect. the casual feel of the rest of the album was a bit of a surprise, but rev is otm about the phrasing being really striking, I get fragments stuck in my head all the time, in a way which is oddly very charming.

his phrasing when he says "top floor motel suite, twisting my cigars/ floor model TV with the VCR" is amazing... in this like singing with rap phrasing way. fantastic.

i really don't understand how that's not something tons of r&b singers have done before. like is that the thing that wows you.

"Pyramids" is like the anti-"Adorn" (which I know is song of the year for lots of people here, but #2 for me)--even to the point where Adorn added an extra minute, whereas Pyramids excised its first half when played on SNL (& possibly other TV performances...?)--but p much everything about it works for me: the fraught drama of the first part, the Mulholland Dr. type schism, the lethargic hypnosis of the "Working at the Pyramid" repetition, John Mayer's Robin Trower impersonation...absolutely the phrasing is terrific...

Listening to the album now, somewhat feeling Rev's and Alex's comparisons to Mama's Gun, it has that sort of laidback intimacy going on, though it doesn't quite attain that atmosphere, doesn't ooze that smokiness, that M'sG does, but that album is top 5 of the decade.

"adorn" is like the worst track on the miguel album. one of the worst tracks.

lol I wasnt talking bout you lex

waht

i'm not sure lex has ever been more in the minority of an argument than he is about "adorn"

even, like, his railing against the beatles has more sympathizers

oh was that waht for Lex's Adorn opinion, Alfred...?

Yes, which sounds even more laughable now that I've heard "Do You" and have decided that it would sound best as a b-side to "Adorn."

"do you..." is prob my favourite track on the album <3

i literally just don't get what's special or memorable about "adorn', i keep listening to it to try and see and it's just a nothing song

my feelings about "Do You" exactly

lex what is your opinion of "sexual healing"

"adorn" is like the worst track on the miguel album. one of the worst tracks.

― lex pretend, Sunday, September 30, 2012 7:02 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow

I don't think I have an opinion on "sexual healing", it's one of those songs that may as well be a jingle it's so overplayed

Adorn isn't even the best song on its art dealer chic ep

Also no one likes the beatles ffs

When did you officially decide to be wrong about everything?

adorn is lovely fwiw

hating on sexual healing is so, i can't even