![]() Snagging big names like Cynthia Erivo, Jenifer Lewis, and Tiffany Haddish is no easy feat, but their talents are lost in this lopsided narrative that's nonetheless presented in bright colors and tight choreography. As a societal critique, it feels forced, and when shoe-horned in between music videos filmed for other singles, it gets even weaker (to say nothing of not one but two songs bragging about his wealth). Set in the fictional town of Nacirema Falls, where every couple is Black and gay, "straightophobia" is frowned upon, and a white kid walking in the neighborhood is needlessly gunned down by a Black police officer with no consequences. ![]() "Forbidden", his second visual album, tries to make a too-obvious point about oppression by flipping binaries. Todrick Hall is very used to doing what he wants by having few people tell him "no." While this means the singing, dancing, and always-online personality has been fiercely independent, it also means he's able to snag superstar appearances for projects with half-baked ideas. ![]() Fans can certainly parse through the film for meaning or perhaps view it as a definitive tell-off to a mega-corporate conglomerate, but as a stepping stone to his masterpiece, "Endless" ended up feeling like an afterthought, and its visual certainly plays like one. While "Endless" and "Blonde" are very much aural cousins to each other, "Endless" completely fails the "visual" part of being a "visual album," as this film consists of nothing but black and white footage of Ocean building a staircase. While "Blonde" was instantly considered a classic, the release of that record immediately overshadowed the impact of "Endless", and while it is very much considered the lesser of the two releases, years of distance have let fans appreciate the visual album's sparse pop sensibilities. "Endless", a visual album, was released on Apple Music to help fill out his Def Jam contract, and the following day he dropped his legendary "Blonde" album on his own label, angering Def Jam execs. The release of "Endless" is surrounded by controversy, as Ocean somewhat publicly battling with his label Def Jam over the release of his heavily anticipated new record. So what are you waiting for? Open your ears, eyes, and heart to the definitive ranking of every visual album ever. To make this elite list, the visual in question has to total more than a half-hour (sorry, Arcade Fire's "Scenes from the Suburbs"), it has to have general availability/circulation (which cuts JPEGMAFIA's "Darkskin Manson", "333" by Green Jellÿ, and Manu Gavassi's region-restricted "GRACINHA"), it's more purely artist-driven instead of a mere star vehicle (which means musician-oriented films with soundtracks like "A Star is Born" and "Burlesque" get the boot), concert films are their own category (thus disqualifying mostly-live treatments like Alice Cooper's "Welcome To My Nightmare" and Metallica's "Through the Never"), and the visual album in question has to be a new standalone statement (thus cutting The Village People's "Can't Stop the Music" due to its reliance on old hits and other artists' music). ![]() Yet if we're going to make a definitive ranking of every visual album ever, we have to have some criteria. ![]()
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