"Why see the world, when you got the beach?" he sings, as if describing a sun-baked prison.Įlton John's pouncing "Bennie and the Jets" piano riff is repurposed for the yellow-brick-road emptiness of "Super Rich Kids." Sweatshirt's measured rapping does as much to evoke the decadence as his acute words. "Sweet Life" seduces like a drug dealer, Ocean crooning over a laid-back rhythm, "the water is blue, swallow the pill." The tension between the sacred and the secular that has informed soul albums since Ray Charles bobbed and weaved through the '50s courses through many of these songs, as do references to soul greats from the past – the Stevie Wonder-ish keyboards, the layered Marvin Gaye voices in constant conversation with one another, the Prince-like guitars and psychedelic-gospel inflections In the tradition of those artists, who thought not only in terms of songs but of album-length concepts and themes, "Channel Orange" creates a state of mind with words and sound. But Ocean quietly demands to be taken on his own idiosyncratic, highly individual terms, and he succeeds. The hooks, the insistent melodies were more abundant on "Nostalgia, Ultra." This album is longer than last year's mix tape, and contains some filler. For a major-label debut, it's surprisingly understated, at times exceedingly modest – Ocean's name doesn't even appear on the album cover. It's subtle and dreamy, drifting in a wash of electronic keyboards and muted percussion. Despite some high-profile collaborators, including OutKast's Andre 3000, John Mayer and Odd Future's Earl Sweatshirt, the music isn't particularly flashy. The poignant three-minute distillation of how it feels to lose something precious stands as the peak moment on an album set in Southern California, Ocean's home away from home since leaving New Orleans. Strings support him as he rises softly to falsetto, breaks back to a near spoken-word verse ("I can't tell you the truth about my disguise") and collapses into despair ("It brings me to my knees"). Over a handful of mournful organ chords, Ocean imagines a one-sided conversation with a taxi driver.
"Bad Religion" mourns a break-up with an unnamed "he," but Ocean's boldness is matched by his artistry as a vocal dramatist and nuanced lyricist.
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