 Less melodic and hook-oriented than Nostalgia, Ultra, Channel Orange has soft melodies, gentle articulation, spatial arrangements, and mid-tempo drum beats, although the more ruminative songs feature slower tempos. Robert Christgau asserted that, without its predecessor's reliance on samples, "Ocean resists making a show of himself — resists the dope hook, the smart tempo, the transcendent falsetto itself." Ocean, a baritone, sings with casually expressive vocals, free-form flow, conversational crooning, and alternating falsetto and tenor registers. Similar to Nostalgia, Ultra, Channel Orange has interludes that feature sounds of organs, waves, tape decks, car doors, channel surfing, white noise, and dialogue. They exhibit an analog sound quality, and some end abruptly. Writers interpreted them to represent the limited attention span of listeners, moments in Ocean's life, the distortion inside his mind, nostalgic ephemera, or a synesthesia-inspired theme. Jesse Cataldo of Slant Magazine viewed that the segues, along with the other songs' disparate lengths, give the album the feel of a mixtape.
