“So why see the world when you got the beach,” Frank Ocean sings in “Sweet Life,” but he isn’t so much questioning as he is advising. The world can throw stones at you, especially when you’re a rising personality and you reveal that your first love was another man. Things are much simpler when you take a small space and make it your personal universe, and Ocean does that as well as anybody. Pools and palm trees, after-sundown love affairs and cool Beverly Hills breezes inhabit this major-label debut from Odd Future’s most sentimental member. But you get more than wistful tales from high evenings when you tune into “Channel Orange” – Ocean is a keen observer and a smart storyteller, unsparingly divulging decadent and occasionally soul-purging secrets through whatever musical impulses lead him, R&B tags be damned. He explores different avenues of pop, taking detours down the streets Stevie Wonder tread and adding bits of funk and hip-hop to a pervading SoCal buzz. In his pre-Odd Future days, he was a ghostwriter for the likes of John Legend, Brandy and Justin Bieber – but still, at only 24, it’s strange that this album feels a long time coming. He’s spent enough time in the dark, and you can take that a few ways, but now his channel is being broadcast on all airwaves.