Frank Ocean releases ‘Endless’
Video artwork via Apple Music.
Frank Ocean has released a 46-minute visual album titled Endless, available exclusively on Apple Music.
The rollout began on August 1, 2016, with a mysterious livestream on Ocean’s website, boysdontcry.co. The broadcast, which alternated between live and offline over 18 days, featured Ocean working on a construction project. Instrumental tracks played continuously in the background, serenaded by the sounds of power tools.
After more than a week of inactivity, the stream returned on August 18, just an hour before midnight EST. Ocean finished constructing a spiral staircase and was shown ascending its steps; as he reached the top, the stream abruptly glitched and cut to black. Shortly afterward, on August 19, 2016, Ocean’s second studio album was released on Apple Music.
During the end credits of the film, the final image that scrolls across the scene reads, “Blonde/Boys Don’t Cry,” indicating that the film is part of Ocean’s larger project, which has been in the works since the release of Channel Orange in 2012—with potentially more to come.
Tracklist (Apple Music/DVD*/VHS*):
Device Control
At Your Best (You Are Love)
Alabama
Mine
U-N-I-T-Y
Ambience 001: ‘In A Certain Way’
Comme Des Garçons
Xenons*
Ambience 002: ‘Honeybaby’
Wither
Hublots
Walk Away*
In Here Somewhere
Slide On Me
Sideways
Florida
Deathwish (ASR)
Rushes
Rushes To
Higgs
Mitsu-Sony*
Device Control [Reprise]*
*Update 2018-04-09:
On Cyber Monday, November 27, 2017, Frank Ocean reissued Endless in physical formats, including a CD+DVD, LP, and VHS release, available for sale on blonded.co. Shipments commenced in February 2018 for the VHS and in April 2018 for all other items.
The studio album available on CD and vinyl features 19 tracks with “new, improved full-dimensional stereo” audio. The release includes the previously unlisted tracks “Xenons” & “Mitsubishi Sony” and omits Wolfgang Tillmans’ opening performance of “Device Control” and its closing reprise. Some of the remastered tracks contain additional content compared to the versions premiered in the music video: the outro of “Comme Des Garçons” features vocals from wardrobe stylist Rita Zebdi, and the closing instrumental section of “Mitsubishi Sony” extends by 1:04 on the CD/LP compared to the film. Altogether, the 45:52 visual album is abridged to 38:27 for the audio-only releases.
The DVD & VHS credits also revealed the unlisted track “Walk Away,” or the last 18.5 seconds of “Hublots.”
Despite the varying tracklists across releases, the visual and audio releases of Endless contain the same album, except for “Device Control.”
Tracklist (CD/LP):
At Your Best (You Are Love)
Alabama
Mine
Unity
A Certain Way
Comme Des Garçons
Xenons
Honeybaby
Wither
Hublots
In Here Somewhere
Slide On Me
Sideways
Florida
Impietas + Deathwish
Rushes
Rushes To
Higgs
Mitsubishi Sony
The title sequences with the film and album credits for the Apple Music and DVD releases are shown below, along with a tracklist comparison of each release. Select one of the thumbnails to view the full-size image.
Promotional banner via Apple Music.
Promotional banner via Apple Music.
The official album artwork for Endless was displayed during “blonded 006” of Blonded Radio, with the song “At Your Best (You Are Love)” at around 44 minutes into the episode (Apple Music, 2017-05-18).
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