The journey Ocean has been on for the last few years could well make a pretty gripping biopic should his future output warrant it, but Channel Orange is the closest we’ll come for now. Where before he had perhaps been most startling for his stark juxtaposition with the rest of Odd Future collective through which he’d come to light, this album following on from his work with The Throne in 2011 consecrated his position as a star in his own right. Both widely acclaimed and commercially successful, this record proved to perhaps be the landmark release of the year. Subverting norms was the manifesto undertook in the production of, and build-up to, this album, and whilst there is plenty of talking points related to the latter aspect, it all would have counted for naught if the former hadn’t been so exquisitely well done. The song-writing and production are idiosyncratic and immensely creative… to the point of perhaps being a little hit-and-miss, but over the course of the album the ambition is so grand and so frequently successful that that which bothers can be easily ignored. ‘Pyramids’ is enormous and brilliant; ‘Pilot Jones’ and ‘Pink Matter’ are clever and engaging; ‘Thinkin Bout You’ and ‘Bad Religion’ deeply personal and emotive – a refinement of the mood struck by tracks on nostalgia, ULTRA like ‘There Will be Tears’. The success and significance of such tracks raise the record as a whole more often to moments that are quite simply sublime. Perhaps by maintaining the ambition, but reining in the number of songs and trimming down the fat of abstract interludes and segues Ocean will put out an absolute stone-cold classic next time around. But right now he’s given us a truly tremendous record and that’s more than enough.