Talking 'Bout a Real Love: Frank Ocean's channel ORANGE [10 Years Later]

-
Honestly, the fact that you’re reading this review now is a big deal to me. I *very* rarely mention anniversaries of albums that I love, but this is simply different. To go even further, hearing channel ORANGE for the first time as a kid was transformative. I saw this little orange CD on the new release stand at the local library and decided to pick it up. Again, I was literally 10 when this came out, so I had no idea what the intricacies of love and romance even were at that point, but putting that little disc inside my shitty portable CD player was certainly something. I literally didn’t know that a song could as perfect as “Pyramids” was and still is. Let me just be honest with something: This is my favorite album of all time. I gave it a relisten last night/this morning just to see if it’s in the running, and it easily took the cake. The only thing that bothers me about the digital version is that the final track doesn’t include the hidden track, “Golden Girl” with Tyler, the Creator.

People have those albums that introduced them to different genres, no matter how old or young you are. Even if they’re not the best albums you’ve heard in the genre, they could hold a special place in your heart. Watch the Throne introduced me to rap as a whole. Oneohtrix Point Never’s Replica was my gateway drug to vaporwave, ambient, and electronic music in general. Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen got me into singer-songwriter music. More recently, clipping.’s one-two punch of There Existed an Addiction to Blood and Visions of Bodies Being Burned got me into much more experimental rap. Hell, Lingua Ignota’s CALIGULA is the reason you’re reading this text on this website right now. I may have the nostalgia glasses on for this, but channel ORANGE was the start of everything, though. Alongside figuring out who I was as a person later in my life, this was the album that made a little kid go “Wow, this music thing’s pretty cool.”


Listen here

YouTube Music




channel ORANGE is a Def Jam release.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lil Yachty - Let’s Start Here. ALBUM REVIEW

-
Image
I gotta keep holding to my promises about reviewing. I always love it when an artist takes a risk with their material. Whether or not it works out, I usually admire the risk and appreciate the fact that any artist can do something out of their comfort zone. Either way, the artist in question today is Lil Yachty, a rapper that has basically become a joke the longer his career’s gone on. However, going into a new genre out of left field isn’t totally new to rap. Childish Gambino jumping into the world of neo-soul with Awaken, My Love! , along with later projects from Mac Miller and Tyler, the Creator having more jazz influences, have proven that turning to a new genre for new ideas has worked out pretty well. Yachty, however, has turned to psychedelic rock in the vein of Tame Impala for this new album, Let’s Start Here. to mark the new chapter of his career. Let’s get into it. Having stuck around with Yachty during the rough patches, I can easily say that Let’s Start Here. is his best ...
Read more

Kendrick Lamar - GNX ALBUM REVIEW

-
Image
Woah, a new review? After this long? Yeah, sure. Why not? I got some plans in the works to keep this active in some form, and I’ll show off some more details in the post after this! What timing for an album to end up bringing this little site back, even if it’s just for a little bit of time. The last post on here was last June, and a lot has happened in my life since then, whether it’s in music or my personal life. Arguably, the biggest moment in music of the year was the beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, which exploded just before this summer with “Like That,” a song off of the first of two Future and Metro Boomin’ albums from this year, WE DON’T TRUST YOU . I don’t need to go into just how massive this beef was (and in still is in some ways), but if you need one major takeaway, I’ll say this: One of the biggest hits of the year, regardless of genre, essentially boiled down to Kendrick calling Drake a pedophile for four-and-a-half minutes. “Not Like Us,” a song where one of the m...
Read more

Porter Robinson - Nurture ALBUM REVIEW

-
Image
I wanna just lay in a field of grass, but I’m allergic to pollen :( I’ve always had a very strange relationship with electronic music. The bad music I’ve heard in the genre has been some of the worst music I’ve ever heard, and the good stuff is some of the greatest music I’ve ever heard. For some context, we have artists like The Chainsmokers on one end, and Daft Punk on the other. There are some subgenres in here too that work. Electropop is one of them, being an obvious fusion of pop and electronic music. In the little community of the AOTY website, the users there have been hyped as hell for this Porter Robinson album, Nurture . It’s apparently his first in seven years, and I’ve only heard one single from it, titled “Musician.” While it wasn’t the best electropop song I’ve heard, it’s certainly an interesting sound that I think can work pretty well. So, with how anticipated it is in the AOTY community, I figured I should take a listen and see what all the fuss is about. Let’s get in...
Read more