Skip to main content

Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE

As of about a week ago, with this eloquent note, Frank Ocean became the first major urban artist to come out of the closet. Luther Vandross would be proud. This bit of news, quite justifiably, got the guy a ton of media coverage.

To capitalize, his label has just rush released his major label debut, channel ORANGE, on iTunes.  Unfortunately, the album sucks. His earlier mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra, was full of interesting songs that were well written and soulfully sung. Here, the music is still intriguing and soulful, but there's little quality or focus. At least 2/3 of the album sounds like an extended interlude, and the other 1/3 is not particularly memorable either. I like Thinking of You, Lost, and Forrest Gump, but three good songs out of 17 is not particularly good.

tl;dr: The first major openly gay urban artist releases his debut to great media fanfare. Too bad it sucks. Go and listen to his old mixtape instead, that shit was off the chain.

Comments

  1. "Lost" was the only song that caught my attention, having already heard "Thinking About You."

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Greatest Song of All Time

The music business has its fair share of complexities, as you would expect from any business with such a long history, and that is, at its core, built upon international law (i.e. copyright). That complexity is almost always hidden from the listening public. However, one piece that is curiously exposed every year when the Grammys come around is the separation between what is a "record" and what is a "song". The second and third most prestigious awards at the Grammys are, respectively, "Song of the Year," and "Record of the Year." What's the difference? Most people, including most musicians, wouldn't be able to tell you. I couldn't either until I took a music industry course in college where someone finally explained it to me: A "song" is melody and lyrics. The best way I have to think if it is, if hear someone play a faithful-to-the-original, acoustic cover, the "song" is what would be the same between the orig...

Best of The X-Factor UK

This coming Wednesday, Simon Cowell's replacement for American Idol, The X Factor, will debut here in the states. So, here's my favorite moments from the UK X-Factor, in the hopes that the US version will have moments just as good. Cher Lloyd - Turn My Swag On : A cheeky British teenager (16 at the time) covers the Keri Hilson cover of a Soulja Boy song.  On paper, it should've been a complete joke, but, somehow, Cher made it work.  She totally had the attitude, the look, and the voice to pull it off, and it didn't hurt that the song was actually awesome. Hands down the best and the most unique audition I've ever seen on any of these reality singing shows.   Jamie Archer - Sex on Fire : The song was a huge hit in the UK and an even bigger hit in Australia.  How it never became a hit in the US is beyond me.  Anyways, Jamie Archer has a perfect voice for the song and he just fucking sells it.  I can't help but smile watching this, and, judging by the vide...

Best Musical Snippets of 2013

It's always great when you get a song that's consistently great from beginning to end, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way.  Sometimes you get songs where a certain section clearly stands out from the rest. Here's a few from this year: The Chorus of Kanye West's Bound 2 : The soul sample that occupies the rest of the song is soul only in name.  It approximates College Dropout-era Kanye with none of the warmth and, well, soul that made those tracks great.  The chorus is the exact opposite.  It uses the electronic music technique of putting a soulful male voice over a bass-heavy beat to create something emotive and genuinely soulful. The 3rd Minute of Youth Lagoon's Mute : Most of the song is nothing but warm, hazy fuzz, but, for about a minute, Trevor Powers cuts through that fuzz with a soaring, uplifting melody that Bono would be jealous of. The Pre-Chorus of Vampire Weekend's Unbelievers : One of two things this year that absolutely blew me away...