BY EVAN ORTIZ, Editor
With Channel Orange, a basic title with a lackluster album cover, one wouldn’t expect to be blown away. Frank Ocean’s first major debut album, however, is everything an R&B rap fan could hope for.
Christopher Breaux, better known by his stage name Frank Ocean, recently released his second smash hit effort of an album entitled Channel Orange on July 11th. Ocean, born in Los Angeles, California, lived there during his early years. At age five, Ocean and his family moved to New Orleans, Louisiana where he would live out the rest of his childhood, picking up strongly on the values of music from the jazzy blues-filled culture of the area. In 2005, he went on to enroll at the University of New Orleans, majoring in music production and recording. However, after Hurricane Katrina hit and destroyed most of his recording studio equipment, he moved his song writing and rapping talents back to his place of birth, which ultimately would jump start his career.
Ocean, twenty five at this point, had been working with some huge names such as John Legend and Justin Bieber but only behind the scenes as a ghostwriter for songs. Ocean really got to take a step out into the spotlight after his newfound friendship with west coast rapper Tyler, The Creator, and through this friendship, he was admitted into the up and coming rap group Odd Future. Odd Future is a collection of young rappers in the Los Angelas which has recently gained a huge following through their diverse and at some times horror-esque lyrics with various grotesque topics.
Through Ocean’s involvement with Odd Future, his song writing and creativity picked back up. Since 2005, Ocean has been featured on several songs with the likes of Tyler, The Creator, Kanye West and Jay Z, as well as releasing his own mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra. Frank was in the running for BBC Sound Of 2012, a internet poll run by music industry figures and critics alike to attempt to find the next big up and coming talent in the music industry. Ocean was also featured on a few tracks of the OF Tape Vol 2. His July release of Channel Orange puts some of these artists as well as few other others, such as Tyler the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt and Andre 3000 on display.
Ocean’s music is riddled with underlying meaning and metaphors relating to his life, unlike his fellow members of Odd Future. Several songs such as Forrest Gump and Thinkin’ Bout You relate openly to his love life. Ocean is admittedly bisexual and his lyrics and meaning behind his songs clearly reflect that. His music does have a message beyond relationships and love, however, with songs such as Crack Rock and Lost relating to addiction and the overall feeling of not knowing where to go from his current point in life. However, most of his songs do have very strong underlying sexual meaning so, of course, a parental advisory explicit content tag has been earned.
Channel Orange has reached critical acclaim after just a month of being available on online marketplaces such as iTunes and Amazon.com. Sales cannot be concluded as accurate however, as album ranks are not only determined by the number of copies sold but also by money made. Channel Orange was sold for an extremely low price of $2.99 on Amazon, resulting in thousands of copies being sold without being properly accounted for. Album sales cannot be counted on a Billboard Top 100 if the initial price of the album is less than $3.49. Even with these setbacks, Channel Orange still reached number two on the pop charts.
Ocean recently made his first major debut performance on MTV Video Music Awards on September 6th. He performed a slightly altered version of his smash hit Thinkin’ Bout You live with guitar backdrop. Ocean was nominated in a few different categories including Best New Artist and Best Male Video. Although being strongly favored to win both, Ocean ended up walking away with no awards, losing in both categories to the British pop boy band powerhouse, One Direction
Channel Orange can be purchased as a digital download for full price at the iTunes marketplace as well as Amazon.com. A physical cd can also be purchased at store.oddfuture.com/collections/music. Nostalgia, Ultra his first mixtape released, can be downloaded at datpiff.com.