R&B's man of the future

Every so often an album is hoisted on the public that has the critics scrambling for superlatives, declaring the recording artist the future of this or that musical genre. Without meaning to, Frank Ocean now enjoys that distinction, with his Channel Orange, the current darling of the music press — touted as the most significant R&B recording of the year.

Frank Ocean — Channel Orange (Island Records). If you follow the music critics abroad, they would say that R&B and rap have pretty much been in a holding pattern for the last five years or so, with no true significant new artist emerging. And these critics now unanimously hail Frank as the face of the future of R&B. Channel Orange is something of a concept album, with intros, outros, instrumental interludes and a whole lot of music. And Frank is all about the music, as he guests John Mayer purely as a guitarist, and has Andre 3000 (on Pink Matter) and Earl Sweatshirt (on the great Super Rich Kids) as his only collaborators — in this day and age when albums are often marked by how many guests and cameos you mustered. Frank has worked with the likes of John Legend, Justin Beiber and Brandy, but he rightfully takes center stage with the CD. Sure he’s got an imperfect falsetto, but that’s part of the charm — with music that’s smoother than Kanye, but rougher than Maxwell. Besides the expected songs about affairs of the heart, Frank has a sly take on socio-economic issues (listen to Sweet Life and the aforementioned Rich Kids), but does his social commentary without being an angry Eminem.

This is a more than impressive album, and if there’s a drawback, I would say it’s that the music is too smooth and chill; we almost beg for one or two uptempo songs to come into the mix, and get us on our feet. Songs like Pyramids and Lost demonstrate how much of a major talent Frank promises to be, and while this isn’t his first solo CD, the word on the street has never been as rabid and marked by superlatives as it is for the new album. Listening will make you understand why, but being called the future can also be a curse, so I just hope Frank outlives the hype.