frank ocean channel orange review track by track

When Channel Orange lets you down it's the production.

Frank's got melodies to go, and even when his stories lose the cohesion and clever detailing of his best writing, it still makes for pleasant listening. It's a joke he probably could've fleshed out into a full song, as Ocean's songwriting talent is perceptible even when he's joking. The throwaway interlude that follows it, 'Fertilizer,' sounds like the theme to a discarded '70s Sunday morning talk show. The track hasn't gotten any more complex in that year, but it hasn't lost its luster either. It opens with 'Thinkin Bout You,' which has been available online for about a year now and helped cement the buzz Ocean had built with nostalgia, ULTRA and his features with the Odd Future goons. It will be interesting to see how it performs in an industry that's geared towards $0.99 morsels rather than ten-dollar tapestries. Channel Orange is a much more even piece of work, and much more enjoyable as an album. And if the heights aren't so high, neither are the lows so punishingly boring as those on last year's nostalgia, ULTRA EP. By Alan Pyke There's nothing on Channel Orange that captures the deathwish misery of 'Swim Good' or the slacker sexiness of 'Novacane,' but Frank Ocean's debut LP is very enjoyable despite not scaling the pop-epic heights of his first hits.

Frank ocean channel orange review track by track