Frank Ocean‘s Endless album won’t be climbing up the Billboard charts anytime soon. According to Billboard, his visual album is deemed ineligible.
Ocean wowed fans with an epic followup to Channel Orange with two albums days apart. The second one, Blonde, is shattering the Billboard 200, boasting 17 tracks available for download and streaming on iTunes and Apple Music. Each song can be heard individually, earning spots on other Billboard charts.
Fans can only stream Endless in its 45-minute entirety on Apple Music, however, and cannot listen to individual tracks or purchase the album. This becomes problematic based on the way music streaming is monitored. Album rankings are judged by how many times songs are streamed—1,500 streams equals one unit and albums are sorted by number of units. In addition, the industry looks at album sales, something Endless lacks.
This isn’t the first long-form or visual album in recent years. But the inability to buy it and differentiate track from track is setting it apart. Other artist have complied them at one point or another. To cooperate with the current standards of the charts, Ocean would have to break the album into its individual parts. Read the article in full here.
