 At the end of 2012 , Channel Orange was named the year 's best album by numerous publications , including the Chicago Sun @-@ Times , Chicago Tribune , Billboard , Entertainment Weekly , The Guardian , the Los Angeles Times , The Sydney Morning Herald , Now , Paste , PopMatters , Slant Magazine , Spin , and The Washington Post . 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 . It was also voted the best album of 2012 in the Pazz & Jop , an annual poll of American critics published by The Village Voice . In an essay for the poll , the newspaper 's Eric Sundermann deemed the victory unsurprising as Ocean " dominated most music discussions this past year " and had an equalizing effect on listeners of all music genres . Metacritic cited it as both the " top @-@ ranked " and " best @-@ reviewed major album " of 2012 , as well as " one of the best @-@ reviewed albums of the past decade " . Channel Orange won the Album of the Year award at the 2012 Soul Train Music Awards , and earned Ocean nominations for the 2013 Grammy Awards in the categories of Album of the Year , Best New Artist , and Record of the Year ( for " Thinkin Bout You " ) , winning for Best Urban Contemporary Album . Ocean agreed to perform at the awards show only if they let him play the song he wanted , " Forrest Gump " . 
