Such was the quality of Nostalgia ULTRA, it was difficult to keep three things in mind: that it was only a mixtape, that he is affiliated with the controversial and violent hip-hop collective, Odd Future, and that with the style of music he makes, Ocean’s contemporaries are actually acts like Usher and Ne-Yo. Channel ORANGE has been one of the most anticipated albums of the year and rightly so on his 2011 mixtape, Nostalgia ULTRA, Ocean demonstrated that he’s an exciting addition to the world of popular music, with a wealth of ideas and a willingness to experiment which far outstrips the majority of his R&B peers. Of course, all this scandalised whispering and hypothesising has overshadowed the release of this record and, in the rush to make a point or three, this review has fallen into the same trap as so many before it. Ocean had spoken about sleeping with women previously therefore his falling in love with a man doesn’t make him gay any more than eating a tofu burger makes you a vegetarian.
Finally, it taught us that, by and large, people have a poor understanding of the spectrum of human sexuality. It told us that many people fall into two groups: homophobes and people who are so desperate to show they’re not homophobic that they loudly congratulate themselves for being comfortable with the sexual preferences of others – you know, standard human behaviour that you’d hope would be the norm and needn’t be accompanied by a fanfare of self-recognition. It told us that, despite it being 2012 ( 2012?!), who an artist fancies is still more newsworthy than the art they create. Ocean’s Tumblr post and the ensuing hubbub revealed several things – notably that he writes absolutely beautifully – but it really said more about us than it did him. Sure, he’s had some healthy record sales in the aftermath but you can’t help but think that nobody would want the scrutiny of the media turned on them in such a fashion. There have been countless features, articles and op-ed pieces about him, though depressingly few have focused primarily on his music. Since he published a certain Tumblr post (which was initially planned to be included within Channel ORANGE itself), he’s become one of the most talked-about artists on the planet. They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but Frank Ocean might have a thing or two to say about that.
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