One example of brilliant songwriting is the album centerpiece and future classic 'Pyramids.' Akin to Kanye West's 'Runaway' on his 2010 masterpiece, Pyramids is a longwinded, nine-plus minute epic with an instrumental breakdown towards the end. Many of the songs on this rather long LP have catchy hooks and on the surface are not too complex pop songs, but under the surface Frank Ocean is a one-of-a-kind songwriter. Frank Ocean pours himself into this album, and for that it's very personal, yet also accessible. Frank Ocean sings about love, and love is orange. While most of his music is primarily R&B, Frank does not sing or rap about sexual promiscuity, drugs and alcohol for the most part like Abel Tesfaye of The Weeknd.

Another unique attribute to the music on Frank Ocean's debut album is his lyrics.

Therefore Channel Orange cannot be categorized, but rather toys with a number of influences and jumps around between genres. Also, Frank Ocean has mixed a number of genres like R&B, hip-hop, funk, soul, rock. Frank Ocean structured this album so it would play like a TV channel-there are many 'commercials' throughout the album, or musical interludes between songs with varied sound effects and feelings. But what is orange about it? It's almost impossible to describe why something feels a certain color-like why is love and desire thought of to be red and not blue? But something about the smooth, soulful, funky, R&B-tinged style of music on this album just feels orange.Īside from its obvious orange-ness, Channel Orange is a special, strange album. Channel Orange, its songs, and its vibe-it's all orange. When he was writing this album and recording it, he most likely was thinking, 'orange,' and for good reason. He clearly has an infatuation with the color orange. No matter what, A will always be red and they will automatically perceive A to be red whenever they see it. So someone with grapheme-color synesthesia will associate the letter A with red. Someone who has grapheme-color synesthesia, for example, involuntarily and automatically associates letters and numbers with certain colors. It isn't exactly a debilitating condition that will get you hospitalized-it does however, influence and affect your life. It's very outlandish and rare, and sounds like something out of a bad sci-fi movie.

Channel orange review track by track