my personal theory is that channel orange is frank presenting the first time he fell in love through the use of television.
lets take a look..
the word "channel" has various meanings:
before the release of channel orange, frank said that orange reminded him of the summer he fell in love. with these two statements we can make up the meaning behind the albums name which directly correlates into the entire structure behind it.
channel = focusing on orange = the summer he fell in love
the beauty behind this project is that it relates everything back to the letter, it's the screenplay to the entire album. the most important thing behind it was that frank loved a guy who didn't love him back, this statement is the heart of the album.
your question was why is the significance of the use of start & end?
the first track starts off with two guys laughing, it sounds like frank and most likely his lover hanging out and laughing as franks suddenly wakes up which indicates to the listener he was dreaming. frank then turns on the playstation as the track ends. this is very important as it clearly presents the two major characters in the album, frank and lover. furthermore, frank was dreaming about them hanging out, reminiscing about the times when they were friends. (after frank confessed his love, their relationship became peculiar)
this goes into track #2, thinkin bout you. this placement makes perfect sense, frank was just dreaming about this guy, he plays playstation and now is thinking about him.
do you ever dream about a crush then can't stop thinking about them the entire day? this is exactly it.
as the album progresses we get to indulge in some exotic, adventurous stories which brings me to the television static. tracks like fertilizer, not just money, lost all have these mini skits.
we never hear a song cut off in the middle do we? nope, we only hear the television static ONCE the song is over. this means that frank listens to the ENTIRE song before changing the channel. we hear channels flip , interludes, skits, but he always comes to the channel that plays music, he finds himself tuning into one channel, the channel that is broadcasting HIS love, HIS story, channel ORANGE.
this particular channel is taking him back to different points in his life, all the times hes loved, felt pain, joy. he tries changing the channel but he keeps on coming back to this one, its almost as if its calling him.
now the track end is super important. remember start? it was him DREAMING about being with his lover.
end is frank creating the perfect moment. at the time 1:25 you hear frank and the girl kiss and that's when i thought, end was frank's way of creating the, the moment he wished had happened, he wished the his friend reciprocated his love by kissing him.
've always wondered why frank sampled voodoo even after he dropped it on tumblr as a loosie, so i went and looked at the lyrics and it's obvious why he chose to end the album with this song, the sample choice here is incredibly significant.
"looking like all we’ve got is each other, the truth is obsolete"
remember frank and this guy spent an entire summer together almost everyday, they became really good friends, enough to make frank fall in love with him, he thought this guy is all he needed, all they have is each other, all that's worth doing is loving one another. the truth is obsolete.
"he wrapped the whole wide world in a wedding band"
the ring symbolizes the world and a fresh start; the two are now one, joined by the marriage and officially together, something frank was craving for, the other guys love.
this song speaks major volume and especially in this situation, it's basically narrating the sequence frank wished had happened and its happening in front of him right on the radio, to fall in love, to igonore the bullshit in the world and just be love with this guy yet in reality frank tells the guy he loves him and what does he do? pats his back and walks away, the opposite, the ultimate nightmare.
the song that proceeds end is forrest gump and this is also intentionally placed there. it's one of the only songs besides bad religion where frank uses a pronoun to directly indicate which sex hes talking to. it's also about frank coming to terms with the fact that his lover and him will never be more than just friends, he's accepted that he can't be in a relationship with this man but he won't forget him ever. infect his letter and the last verse of forrest gump have something in common, they both acknowledge franks lover.
to recap everything, forrest gump is the actual closer of channel orange where through 15 songs frank pleads his heart about drug addiction, heart break, pregnancy, unrequited love and on the 16th track he finally acknowledges the truth and lets his first lover go for the last time & track 17 is what frank wished it had been between them, a happy, beautiful relationship.