Fresh Produce, LP

When Frank Ocean’s Endless arrived by surprise on a Thursday night in August, the feverish anticipation for his way-overdue third release was soon replaced by confusion. Before the world, or at least the internet, could categorically classify it as “classic” or “trash,” it first had to figure out, What is it? As fans and skeptics tried to derive meaning from the 45-minute “visual album,” we didn’t know that it would only live as a continuous video on Apple Music, or that it would be followed up by Blonde a couple of days later. What we did know was that Frank had apparently spent his four-year hiatus learning carpentry.

In the days after Endless’s release, things crystallized: no traditional single would be plucked from it; no album edit with separate tracks would be available for purchase, and anyone wanting such a convenient and conventional experience would have to rip its audio and cut it up themselves. It was a shrewd move that presumably offered Def Jam a single source of revenue while providing Frank a clever exit from the label’s grip. But, because it was quickly followed up by the more accessible (in both format and content) Blonde, Endless was somewhat forgotten, chalked up as an artistic whim on Frank’s part, a palate cleanser before the Real Album.

But in reality, it was considerably the more forward-thinking of the two. While visual albums have become common — yet another way to “pull a Beyoncé” in the age of digital releases — Endless is unique for only existing as a video. The film — which found him building a staircase, a transparent allegory for the slow, difficult recording process both projects required — was not a marketing tool to advance sales and streams of the album or a visual companion that literally illustrated the musical narrative. The video was the album.

Just as it exploded the assumption that an album must be a sequential collection of distinct audio tracks, so did it challenge the notion of what a song should be. As tracks flow into and out of each other, Frank offers a handful of compelling alternatives to conventional song structure. A gentle, traditional five-minute cover of Aaliyah’s “(At Your Best) You Are Love” — itself a cover of the Isley Brother’s 1976 song of the same name — blends into “Alabama,” a pulsing song featuring vocals from Sampha and Jazmine Sullivan. It takes him only a verse and a coda to tell a detailed story that concludes with the loss of a virginity, perhaps his own. One of my favorite tracks, “Comme Des Garcons,” is a minute-and-a-half long; another, “Higgs,” isn’t much longer and is followed by a lengthy, didactic outro made independently by the artist Wolfgang Tillmans. All are given equal importance, all feel complete as they are.

We take it for granted that pop music should comprise some combination of verses and hooks and bridges, a relatively linear format that, following the rise of radio, allowed listeners multiple entry points into a song. Of course, artists across all genres have successfully diverged from that structure, but Endless is perhaps the most high-profile example in recent years. And as Frank’s woodworking was meant to suggest, it’s likely the most carefully crafted. — RAWIYA KAMEIR