After releasing his mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra the previous year, Ocean began writing new songs with Malay, a producer and songwriter who then assisted him with recording Channel Orange at EastWest Studios in Hollywood.

Noted by writers as musically unconventional, Channel Orange draws on electro-funk, pop-soul, jazz-funk, and psychedelic styles, as well as nonmusical sounds such as film dialogue and ambient noise that function as interludes.

His songwriting explores themes of unrequited love, decadence, social class, and drugs through the use of surrealistic imagery, conversational devices, and descriptive narratives depicting dark characters.

[1] Ocean and Def Jam eventually mended their relationship,[1] and while a planned contracted edition of Nostalgia, Ultra never materialized, the label released two of its songs as singles, including the Billboard charting "Novacane".

[11] 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.

[5] In an interview after Ocean's open letter, Malay called him "the new hybrid of what an MC used to be in the '80s or '90s ... the true storyteller" and said of the lyrics, "I don't think anyone during any given point during the creative process knew what was happening ... when he's singing maybe from a female perspective or whatever, it's a story, it's a world that he created.

[17] 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.

[5] He previewed songs at different stages of completion to get feedback from guest artists, some of whom he cited as his "creative heroes",[13] including record producer Pharrell Williams,[5] who co-wrote and co-produced "Sweet Life" with Ocean.

[20] Writers interpret them to represent the limited attention span of listeners,[48] moments in Ocean's life,[41] the distortion inside his mind,[50] nostalgic ephemera,[51] or a synesthesia-inspired theme.

[51] According to Hayley Louise Brown from Clash, the songs are "interwoven by the ambient noise of middle America – video games, TV commercials, aeroplanes and car doors".

[52] The songs are confessional yet guarded, alive to all sorts of musical and lyrical possibilities, working in a number of genres within the space of a single composition, alert to both dream imagery and realistic observations of the world around him.

[36] 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.

[10] John Calvert of The Quietus wrote that his lyrics treat love as "innocent", and feature "flying-as-love" metaphors and "respectful euphemisms" for sex such as a flight on a "fighter jet".

[6] Embling of Tiny Mix Tapes regarded Channel Orange as a "songwriter's album" and views that, although "the emotions, mood, and melodies are broad enough to draw listeners in", Ocean's lyrics are "apocryphal, allowing for personal interpretations".

[34] The low-key torch song "Thinkin Bout You" features soothing synth cycles,[6] sparse keyboards,[35] muffled electronic percussion,[38] and lyrics addressing a lover with white lies in the verses and thoughts of eternal love in the chorus.

[3] "Sierra Leone" incorporates chillwave and quiet storm styles, wind chime sounds, lo-fi beats,[6] and polyphony similar to Prince's 1985 song "Paisley Park".

[3] "Super Rich Kids" references the thumping piano line of Elton John's 1973 song "Bennie and the Jets" and addresses young, wealthy characters' ennui and fears of the financial crisis with dry humor.

[36][60] "Pilot Jones" employs magic realism and escapist imagery,[6] and depicts an emotional dependency between drug addicts, who confuse friendship with sexual love in their support of each other.

[61] The swooning song contains hazy electronic blips,[3][4] impressionistic textures, experimental beat patterns, refracted sound effects, and vocal improvisation expressing the narrator's "high".

"[60] Veering from synth-funk to slow jam styles,[36] the song has a lyrical conceit that uses Ancient Egyptian and Biblical imagery,[60] and contrasts the legendary fall of Cleopatra with the circumstances of a latter-day working girl,[3][36] who dances at a strip club called the Pyramid to support her man's gaudy aspirations.

[35][36] "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.

[3][45] "Bad Religion" features melodramatic, orchestral music and a series of figures, including strings, handclaps, marching band snare drums,[55] and mournful organ chords.

[73] In November 2013, it was ranked at number nine on Complex magazine's list of "The 50 Best Pop Album Covers of the Past Five Years", with contributing journalist Dale Eisinger writing in an accompanying essay: "Ocean took a simple route with the cover … Employing the classic Cooper Black font — a staple of his Odd Future crew and hip-hop history, alike — next to a more modern, Sans-Serif font shows just how smart this dude is, looking back to the past, while clearly aware of his surroundings.

[74] On July 9, he made his television debut on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and performed "Bad Religion" with backing from the show's house band The Roots and a strings section.

Target representatives dismissed Clancy's claims as "absolutely false" in a subsequent statement to MTV News, saying that the company "supports inclusivity and diversity in every aspect of our business.

[17][112] Although he did not specify his reason, Ocean issued a statement to organizers of the Way Out West Festival in Sweden, saying that "Let me start by saying I feel like an asshole right now, but a tough decision had to be made in regard to my schedule over the next months ...

"[27] The album was called "an expansive, slow-burning classic that repays patience and close attention" by Killian Fox in The Observer,[46] while musicOMH critic Laurence Green described the music as "a cherry-picking of life's cacophony repainted into the most enchanting of collages".

[51] For AllMusic, Andy Kellman wrote that Ocean's "descriptive and subtle storytelling is taken to a higher level" than on Nostalgia, Ultra,[4] while Mike Powell from Spin considered his tempered singing to be a sign of "exceptional wisdom and repose".

[49] Fellow Spin writer Barry Walters identified the album as a key release of alternative R&B, alongside others by contemporaries Drake, the Weeknd, and Miguel, while adding that "Ocean's singer-songwriter candor combined with arrangements that stretch from EDM to prog-rock and progressive soul could be the tipping point for a type of rock/R&B crossover that's taken place under different labels since Jimi Hendrix got Experienced.

"[119] State journalist Fintan Walsh said Ocean's lyrics capture "the modern youth" just as Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds album had in 1966, calling Channel Orange "a masterful, dynamic and evocative collection of conversations between his inner-self and the listener".