Early Morning Thoughts on Frank Ocean’s new Visual Album, “Endless”
Woke up and paid for Apple Music (damnit) to watch the 45min “visual album” Frank Ocean teased with a livestream then dropped last night.
It’s 7:34am right now. Want to get my thoughts out here before they’re warped by the Twittersphere.
First—mainstream fans are probably going to be pissed. This is an “album” in the purest sense, i.e. tone poem of regretful melancholy, replete with moments of outright trolling. Which is to say, this is an obnoxiously intellectual artistic exercise, there’s no way I have even begun to unpack anything yet and I love it.
Second—I’ll leave it to critics to flesh out the metaphor of how building a staircase mimics the artistic process etc. etc. but I think that’s much less important than the space itself in which this process is taking place. This is a “warehouse” in every sense of the word, echoes bounce between “tracks” and high ceilings soak up the sound. We’re not listening to this outside. We’re not listening to this in our car.
In fact, we’re definitely listening to this at 4 in the morning with our friend passed out on the couch, wondering if we’re “on the wrong side of average.” Our living room expands; becomes our warehouse.
We’re checking our phone and no one’s up, so we’re “blurring the line” and streaming ART right into the palm of our hands thanks to APPLE & SONY & SAMSUNG (brands referenced explicitly and repeatedly in the last track).
Maybe we’re not alone, maybe we’re not a genius, maybe we’re building stairs because they’re the tower of Babel—maybe we’re not supposed to cry. Even though I did cry, many times, listening to Channel Orange. As a gay man, something as simple as Forrest Gump was like NOTHING I’d ever heard, before or since.
Endless is minimal; not simple.
Yet there is still so much suspense in this album. Frank climbs the stairs! Then it cuts. B-roll begins again, less of an end. The stairs are gone. The warehouse is empty. Just replicates and triplicates of Frank Ocean making… something. Trolling. Maybe there’s more?
