There’s a neon-lit, Aquarian spirit to much of Channel Orange - the production is spacious enough that it wouldn’t be jarring to hear a song like “Aht Uh Mi Hed” slipped into the tracklist - but really, only Side A of the album’s first half bears the evidence of Otis’ electric soul influence. The first time I listened to Channel Orange, I couldn’t shake the specter of another once-young prodigy, Shuggie Otis. At some point, it’s inevitable that discussion will turn towards the issue of homage Ocean weaves an odd array of musical and cinematic references into his songs, some more liminally than others.Ĭertain things you’ll notice and immediately know to be true, whether or not you’ll ever see confirmation.
You could ask about intention, about satire versus sincerity. There’s the matter of genre boundaries, the selective transgression of conventions and expectations, while at other times, an explicit demonstration of reliance on those same conventions.
One could explore the album’s synesthesia-inspired concept, which is, to me, unsuccessfully transmitted through a series of quick, half-sketched songs and halting, ambient transitional pieces. If you’re going to attempt to untie the Gordian knot that is Channel Orange, there are plenty of other places to start. Many of the choices throughout Channel Orange are inexplicable, and pronouns are the least of them. Not that what we know doesn’t matter, but the fact remains that anything that could’ve been said on the matter has probably already been said. This isn’t meant to lay blame at Ocean’s feet it’s not his fault that we so easily confuse art for autobiography. Knowing what we know now, we try to make sense of specific details, inventing narratives whose veracity we’ll never confirm. His lyrics, frequently evocative, are open enough to invite these tarot card, tea leaf readings. In many ways, the artist himself encouraged this behavior. No matter where you looked in the media, people were discussing Frank Ocean, most with sensitivity, some even finding fresh ways to contextualize his release. The week leading up to the early iTunes release of Channel Orange marked a revival to a mono-culture of which many have mourned the loss. Enough has been written about the circumstances surrounding the release of Channel Orange, Ocean’s commercial debut, so much perhaps that when reading about the album, one might get the sense that the music is secondary to the portents of whatever cultural shifts the author perceives. If you’re unfamiliar with the particulars of Frank Ocean’s biography, there are plenty of other outlets that can better catch you up to speed.