Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE

By: Joel Frieders

When Del got back from Coachella and said Frank Ocean's set was boring, I was a tid bit miffed bro. I mean, I understand that his shit probably isn't what I'd spend a few hundred dollars to wait around for, especially when your only goal is to fend off sobriety and sleep, but his music is one of the few things I can't fucking complain about on this planet. It's everything I want, that I didn't even know I wanted, every fucking time I put it on or it comes on unexpectedly. But then again, I probably wouldn't go into a live performance of his and expect it to move me the way his music fucking moves me when I'm gettin' ready to sex the wifepiece up the wifehole yo.

You almost need the room to whip off the jorts, and lock the door, before the fondling begins while listening to Señor Francis Seaballz.

Frank Ocean has surprised me, and made me a permanent fan of his music, because as much as I'm not an R&B kind of guy, his shit is always on point in my sexy ass earholes.

So when I try and quantify a performance of his being boring, I think about his last few months (or years) in and out of the spotlight. As many of you may know, Frank Ocean came out as homosexual just a few days or weeks before channel ORANGE dropped. While I can't especially understand everything Frank went through to muscle that shit out in public, mainly because I'm a white married dude with a lot of children, I can only imagine that shit had to be stressful. Empathizing is pretty much all I can do for dude.

Combine that stress offstage with the stress of having to provide mindblowingz onstage, and well, I can see an opportunity to take one a little lighter, and one should always put their own mental safety ahead of Del.

Then, when I get through my ninth run in 24 hours through the new new, channel ORANGE, the dude sounds fucking jaded. He's gone from a nobody who took a chance on his talent and had no one around to champion him besides his crew, to a guy nearly everyone wanted to blow because of Nostalgia/ULTRA, and he's seen people for what they are. All throughout channel ORANGE, Frank talks about people who annoy me, whether intentionally or not, and he paints pictures of crack heads, rich kids and himself, as lost, misguided, helpless and all around fucked.

Maybe the company Frank has had the opportunity to sit beside since earning himself the status of professional musician has shown him the other side of what he thought he was missing by being an unknown?

As much as I had always wanted to be a rock star and enjoy the bright lights and fancy dinners and free handjobz, I've peeked behind that curtain a few times and I realized early it wasn't a place I thought I needed to be. But I understand the desire to earn a living doing what you love. You can't exactly make the music you've always wanted to make while busting ass at Starbucks 50 hours a week bro bro. So where's the compromise? Do you put up with the social stresses of being a famous artist just to permit constant personal creation? I don't see the two aspects of being a famous musician as being separate, the two go hand in hand, or hand in pants, or line up nose, or whatever.

Channel ORANGE, from a fan's perspective, is fucking awesome. Definitely different from his first album, but it's a fluid and smooth fucking project that actually got me to repeatedly listen to something I don't think I would sit all the way through had it not come from Frank Ocean's throat. Dude's voice is fucking exactly hell yes, and the occasional boredom the guy conveys through his voice is the singing equivalent of Onry Ozzbourn rapping. It's complacent enough that it's fucking cool.

I admire the dude's songwriting ability, but his story telling on this album is just as impressive as a few spots on Nostalgia/ULTRA. More specifically, the tale he sings on Bad Religion is fucking grim and awesome, and is up there with Pyramids as my favorite track on the album. Speaking of Pyramids, it's a fucking nearly 10 minute R&B track, but the way it progresses into and out of different chapters makes it no different than a 3 minute jawn in how often you end up bumping it.

Channel ORANGE, to me, is fucking awesome, and I'm happy to have purchased it on iTunes last Tuesday. For those people who are confused about wanting to not seem like you're too mainstream in hipsterville, there's a reason a bunch of people jump on someone's balls at the same time once in a while. The reason everyone is on dude's nuts isn't completely about his describing how he fell in love with a dude, it's because the dude is genuinely fucking badass with the sing songz bro bro.

Go buy.