Frank Ocean - Channel Orange

When a musician is open with his or her sexuality there is a tendency in the pop world for it to be at the waning end of their career.  There's a worrying urge to suppress anything remotely divisive or controversial within mainstream media and it's troubling: in the UK, winners of television contests Pop Idol and The X Factor - Will Young and Joe McElderry respectively - only felt comfortable coming out of the closet once they had won. Whether this was their own decision or not was speculated - more often by themselves than others - because the impression loomed that they were rather coerced. So what is it about sexuality that's still so taboo? Following the Tumblr post uploaded by Ocean himself with the intended sleevenotes to his debut album, shockwaves were sent around the music industry. "At last!" some seemed to cry, "a gay artist in hip hop!"

It was an incredibly moving piece of writing and revelation that, at the time, reduced me to tears. Some'll reduce that to its sexuality nature, but the whole story of falling in love with a male friend is one that resonated with me, and the uncertainty, frustration and overwhelming fear that goes with it were put beautifully. So rather than view this as some landmark moment in music (because the idea of homophobia in hip hop is debated to death by far more patient bloggers than I), I took it as personal inspiration. The cynic in me says that was the plan to make me write a good review... luckily the album's pretty fucking fantastic too.

We 'Start' then with the Playstation sound effects (and is that Street Fighter I hear?) that're now expected of Ocean; his mixtape Nostalgia/Ultra was laden with the sound of someone switching cassette sides. Properly kicking off though, 'Thinkin' 'Bout You' sees Ocean flipping effortlessly between falsetto and spoken parts. Ultimately the finest R&B track one could hope for, the track rises and falls between strings and a devilishly cool beat, before the upbeat radio jingle-like 'Fertilizer' breaks up the romance a little. The interludes here, rather than recurring and sequential as on his 2011 mixtape, are rather distracting. 'Sierra Leone' though suppresses such qualms with a massive variety of chilled, ambient influences and sound effects (at recurring points it almost sounds like hearing someone smoke), and guides us into the first semi-political take, 'Sweet Life'. Opening with a gentle gesture to the "black Beverley Hills", Ocean rejoices in "why see the world when you got the beach?" but ultimately the sweet life gets too ripe: "this neighborhood is gettin' trippier every day/ The neighborhood is goin' ape shit crazy".

The sense of comfortable insulation from a real and troubled world taken to an easily identifiable city/streets metaphor, the spoken interlude 'Not Just Money' is brushed with an all too corny attempt at reality and personality with the whole background indicator noises shtick. 'Super Rich Kids' however brings smut far more convincingly: "she wash my back three times a day/ this shower head feels amazing". Odd Future classmate Earl Sweatshirt then guests, giving more blunt insights into the lives of rich misfits - "purchasing crappy grams with half the hand of cash you handed". The slow, dragging piano beat adds to the track's sense of glamour vs. dysfunction. A fleeting impression of the introduction to LL Cool J's Control Myself on 'Pilot Jones' throws me off a little, but 'Crack Rock's rather attention-grabbing diatribe on feelings of insignificance and isolation that drug addiction promises: "used to date a blonde/ you used to hit it raw/ 'cause she was and you are madly involved".

All that leads up to this might give the impression that Ocean's playing it safe musically, but the 9 minute 54 opus 'Pyramids' resoundingly tears such claims to shreds: a magnificent, layered, rich and insanely brilliant merger of club, R&B and funk music. Lyrically telling tales of prostitution ("she's working at the pyramid tonight"), opulence ("you feel like God inside that gold") and the ruination of purity ("what good is a jewel that ain't still precious?") the narrative flicks between admiring onlooker and sneering pimp, ending on the rued "your love ain't free no more". Lyrics aside though, it's really the production and sequence of excellent solo after excellent solo that make it so majestic. 'Lost' conversely sees Ocean singing about a drug peddling girl victim to misdirection and insecurities - before a John Mayer spot on 'White' does its best to wash aware such uncertainties with luscious blues solos.

Sex and religion make a more immediate combination on 'Monks', where Ocean compares music performance to a sermon where groupies are teachers: "African girl speaks in an English accent/ likes to fuck boys in bands". "We're high in the clouds", he sings, over a markedly N*E*R*D* sounding production. On the flipside, we're treated to a soul-searching taxi-seat confession on 'Bad Religion', where "unrequited love to me is nothing but a one-man cult". "I can never make him love me" is the show-stealer here given the nature of that Tumblr post, but the vocal earnesty and dramatic strings could serve capable emotional solos. 'Pink Matter' changes colours to grey and blue sporadically as Ocean battles his demons, and there's another faultless guest spot from André 3000. The precise subject matter of 'Forrest Gump' is debatable (who's Forrest - Frank or someone else?), but the whole reference to an entire movie plot gives Ocean a cute sense of the adolescent having direct influence from films and shedding new perspective on personal situations; it just feels very idiosyncratic and nice. The album closes with Ocean having sex in a car, with a fan who remarks "I wish you could see what I see", further casting doubt on the peace of mind of Ocean.

When Janelle Monae released her fantastically ambitious debut album The Archandroid (Suites II and III) two years ago the listener was bombarded with a whole cinematic masterpiece of futurism, soul, jazz, classical music and robotic overlords, and the story was so rich and fascinating that - combined with the album's gorgeous layered songwriting - created an enigma. With Ocean, the enigma is himself. Track after track posits Frank as unsure, troubled and insecure and for a debut to be so bold and forthright - particularly with the personal note I mentioned in the introduction - takes a commendable amount of bravery. Channel Orange is just one of those albums that demands attention and deserves it, and is executed perfectly from start to finish. I scrape 0.5 off a perfect ten because the opening tracks and interludes take a little pace and intrigue away from it all.

Rating: 9.5/10
Highlights: Pyramids, Bad Religion, Thinkin' Bout You, Forrest Gump, Sweet Life, Crack Rock
Avoid: Not Just Money

Artwork Watch: I have been waiting eons for an album to tie in with my blog theme.
For fans of: Kanye West, Janelle Monae, Outkast
Up next: Passion Pit