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What I can appreciate-and do, mostly less than 24 hours after its release to Apple Music- is that Ocean is creative, unconventional, and confounding. Or maybe further explanation in terms of intent and direction (like, is this your vision board of an album or nah?), but who knows if we’ll ever get that given this entire process and rollout has been shrouded in mystery and appears dead set on keeping it that way for the time being. It allows much of Endless to merely float throughout, though exactly where will require more time and many more listens. What continues to shape them and make them singular is Ocean’s way of singing, and in some spots on here, rapping.
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Together, they help give what has become typical Frank Ocean: a wide mixing of genres and moods happening all at once. Other collaborators include Sampha, who joins Ocean and Sullivan on “Alabama,” along with other collaborators like James Blake (a whole lot), Acra (FKA Twigs, Björk, Kanye West),” and indie rock artist Alex G. Their voices and his lyrics compliment each other terrifically-here’s hoping to a continued, blissful musical partnership. Sullivan joins Ocean there and on three additional tracks. That would include other tracks like “Alabama,” which features vocal work from the terribly undervalued singing phenom that is Jazmine Sullivan. That remains the case throughout Endless. Ocean’s voice is not the strongest in terms of range, but there is something skillful about how he uses it-namely his falsetto. We had hints of this as he covered Aaliyah’s cover of “At Your Best (You Are Love).” It was actually not my favorite rendition when it was previously released as “You Are Luhh,” but maybe with time and waiting obsessively for new Frank Ocean music, it sounds sublime. The other immediate takeaway is Ocean is offering listeners much more polished vocals. Whatever the case, Endless is the album we have now and despite the wait and its frankly bizarre delivery (he fits right in with Kanye West and Rihanna when it comes to wonderfully mishandling highly anticipated album releases), it is enjoyable. That would be Boys Don’t Cry, which is said to be coming over the weekend under a different title. The first: it is not the album we were initially promised. There are some immediate takeaways from the project. Especially on Endless where the music is far more commanding of your attention than the visuals presented with it.
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Ultimately, when it comes to music, a visual can magnify what’s being heard, but I prefer to judge music largely by the music itself. Fine, it’s a “visual album,” too.Īfter sitting with Endless for a few additional listens, it’s better consumed without watching the New Orleans native get his Bob Vila on. I can already feel the contempt of the more artsy folks of the world rolling their eyes at me for saying this, but all I got from Endless as a visual is Rhythm and Home Improvement. Each of those offer a more compelling story being told whereas in Endless, Ocean is present throughout but a narrative-which feels pretty essential to the notion of a “visual album”-not so much.
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Kelly’s “Trapped In The Closet” series do. Endless, with the same minimalist, black-and-white imagery shown throughout, doesn’t really resonate in the way Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Suede’s Night Thoughts, Kanye West’s Runaway, or hell, even R. Still, “visual album,” which already had a loose definition but is noticeably expanding by the week, feels too generous a term. We are forced to click play and are provided the visual of Frank Ocean building a staircase while 45 minutes worth of new music plays in the background, serving as a de facto score to what has already been hailed as something that “mixes the avant garde with the accessible.” Sure, there is a visual component to the album. Though it has been described as such all across the Internet, calling Frank Ocean’s Endless a “visual album” instantly makes me recall the old cartoon show Gumby and the Black folklore figure known as Reach Armstrong.