When Frank Ocean unveiled his magnum opus, Blonde, back in August 2016, he (sort of) released another album right before it—though some might not recall this fact. The project, Endless, was a video album only available for stream on Apple Music in low quality, and it was assumed to have been released to fulfill his recording contract with Def Jam (Blonde was released independently). Consequentially, Endless faded into obscurity for the general public, only briefly regaining attention on Cyber Monday (November 27) when Frank offered us a 24-hour limited release of the album on multiple platforms (CD, vinyl, VCR). In typical fashion, the merch took months to ship, but, just yesterday, the first orders were fulfilled, and, as a result, we can now listen to the album as a collection of songs in CDQ rather than a continuous video stream, which we're thankful for. Packed with short interludes and abstract segments, this nineteen-track project is more of a flowing sonic expression than a conventional album. With most tracks being under two minutes, the body of work is vastly more experimental than Blonde and also requires play in sequence, although, we have included a few of our favorite standalone efforts below. Endless is unlikely to ever receive the sort of attention Blonde did, but it's still one of our favorite start-to-finish listens of the past few years, and it offers a deep look into the mind of one of the most brilliant artists of our time. Dive in this below.
Frank Ocean