The album’s 18 tracks are like flipping through Ocean’s notebook of ideas: like the visual stream itself, the songs on Endless are another fascinating peek at his process with many of the ideas appearing raw and almost unfinished, showing that even the most beautiful things can be complicated, and that true love exists not in the pursuit of perfection but in spite of imperfection. But good things come to those who wait, and the visual stream eventually gave way to Endless, the video album which was finally released on August 19. It was painfully slow-moving, featuring a prolonged section of Ocean literally watching paint dry. With the live stream, Ocean invited all his fans to have a taste of the painstaking, methodical process required of an artist working on the follow-up to a generation-defining album, 2012’s Channel ORANGE. When his site finally roared to life on August 1, it did so with a simple message to the world who was waiting with baited breath, a metaphoric visual that was surprisingly clear for an artist known for his complex, poetic songwriting style and advanced lyrical prowess: The video stream depicted him constructing what would eventually reveal itself as a staircase Ocean was literally working away, crafting something beautiful and intricate that would take time, and when it was ready it would be revealed to the world. The image listed chronological dates running from last July 2015 to July 2016, with the exact day of the latter smudged. Fans’ rabidness reached a fever pitch after Jcame and went: Reddit users start plotting to kidnap the reclusive singer’s younger brother Ryan Breaux for ransom developers created apps to alert eager fans of the album’s release and some fans even put together a diss-mixtape titled Boys Do Cry. The road to Frank Ocean’s latest album was a long and confusing one, marred by name changes, untrue rumours and a number of release dates changes-the latter of which even Ocean himself seemed cheekily aware of when he uploaded a library due-date slip to his website early in July of this year.

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