He had a maid at the mansion and enjoyed amenities such as a pool and a sauna, but ended up recording only three songs there—" Lost", " Pyramids", and "Analog 2", a collaboration with fellow Odd Future member Tyler, the Creator. It is composed as a character sketch of a young parent, [57] who sings his infant daughter to sleep.

According to Malay, Kanye West helped Ocean during the album's final stages by providing "a mentorship situation" and connecting him with his "visual people". Crack Rock" depicts a crack addict, [36] likens love to the highs and lows of drug use, [50] and broadly addresses corruption, broken homes, gun violence, [3] and government indifference to rising crack-related deaths. Scrapping his original plan of including it in the album's liner notes, [13] Ocean published a TextEdit file as an open letter through his Tumblr blog on July 4.

Priya Elan of NME said the "inventive and spirited" album's music occasionally sounds overindulgent. Comes in a gatefold sleeve and with 16-page booklet, with a small extra sheet containing a message from the artist and with a promotional sticker on shrinkwrap (see pictures).

In its first week of release, Channel Orange sold 131,000 copies and debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 on July 18, 2012.C., Ocean reflected on the tour and wrote on his Twitter account, "This tourlife takes some getting used to. The album artwork was designed by Thomas Mastorakos, Aaron Martinez, and Phil Toselli, with photography by Dave Eggar. He discussed the phenomenon with Pharrell Williams, who had also experienced it and similarly referenced it for the title of his side project N. Jon Caramanica of The New York Times found the album to be "rife with the sting of unrequited love, both on the receiving and inflicting ends", with "lovers who tantalize but remain at arm's length.

Channel Orange was sold exclusively through iTunes until July 17, when it was released to other digital retailers. Ocean's songwriting uses descriptive narratives, [39] dense metre, [41] surrealistic imagery, empathic sentiments, deadpan humor, [20] overt metaphors, [50] and conversational devices. It is about a girl that provides salvation and peace of mind for the narrator, who likens her to an island.Monks", a funk rock song, [61] is about finding nirvana and deals with topics such as casual sex and devout religion in a narrative that shifts from an exciting concert to a metaphorical jungle. It was named "Album of the Year" in HMV's Poll of Polls, an annual survey of British journalists from national print and online publications. Frustrated with Def Jam Recordings' inactivity in his recording career, Frank Ocean released his debut mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra online for free in February 2011.