Fulfilling its promise of bringing even more exclusives to its music streaming service, Apple Music has exclusively released Frank Ocean’s new visual album Endless. This is Frank Ocean’s second album released to date, with Endless being his first visual album. Fans had been teased on the BoysDontCry.co website with different carpentry shots and a man presumed to be Ocean on the website for the past 2 weeks.Shot in black-and-white, Endless will have you going on a 45-minute visual journey through 18 videos of multiple Frank Oceans transposed onto the video working in a warehouse. You’ll see him building a project in his warehouse (we won’t spoil it here) all the while changing attire, putting on gloves and a mask with the occasional fade to black. You’ll also see him operating a table saw while another Ocean appears to be welding. You won’t find a normal LP here in these 18 video tracks with music only complementing the visuals in Endless here. What you will find are different music styles and rhythms mixed in, from mellow R&B to a few reggae jingles mixed in as well as a few Daft Punk-like tunes. There’s even a new cover of the Isley Brothers’ “At Your Best (You Are Love),” famously covered by Aaliyah.
If the above description sounds vague, it’s because that’s what you’ll find in Ocean’s Endless. Directed by Ocean alongside Francisco Soriano, Ocean’s new album (not Boys Don’t Cry) can be described as more of a visual art statement, and not one that’s telling you a story, unlike Beyonce’s visual album, Lemonade, which had the singer tell a deep story through one long video and different songs. Being a visual album that’s seemingly all over the place, Endless is meant to be both listened and watched in just one setting, instead of finding that favorite song, and repeating it over and over. The video ends with the title of the album with different font.
It’s not clear yet if this is the expected Boys Don’t Cry album that fans have been waiting 2 years ago, although Rolling Stones is reporting that the original title has been scrapped, and that Ocean will be releasing the new album “this weekend.