Apr 29, 2016
If you've been on the Internet this week (hello from a website!) you've seen the phrase "visual album." On Saturday evening last weekend, Beyonce unleashed Lemonade, the album, into the world behind an ever-so-lightly-masked HBO special of the same title. We assumed it was another documentary, and in a way the highly autobiographical Lemonade is a documentary. For viewers that tuned in live (hello again), it is hard to describe the sheer surprise that came in realizing the visual component was a vehicle to deliver a full hour of new music from the Queen.
By now, we've either binge-listened the album multiple times in its week of life, or written it off. I can't imagine an original idea being written about Lemonade after a week of discussing its blackness, its feminism, its autobiography, its absolutely incredible genre-bending track list, or its polarizing lyrics. You love it, you hate it, you jumped on StubHub to get tickets for the Formation show coming closest to your town, or you made a few passive aggressive tweets and moved on.
But who is talking about what it means to be a "visual album"? In Lemonade's case, the availability of the film was at first limited: live on HBO, streaming on TIDAL. Now, for purchase on Apple Music and elsewhere the hefty price tag for the MP3s at least includes the video. How many people are watching it? How necessary is watching Lemonade for enjoying the music or receiving the message? If it isn't necessary, why watch it at all?
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Let me win back readers who are not in the Beyhive: Lemonade by no means invented the "visual album" genre, whatever that quite means. Animal Collective followed up their most critically and commercial acclaimed album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, by partnering with long time collaborator and visual artist Danny Perez to make what they also called a "visual album" ODDSAC, which contains some of their least accessible music. The soaring hooks of "My Girls" not to be found, Animal Collective pair jarring images with equally jarring sounds.
Or how about Pink Floyds' magnum opus The Wall? The imposing double album of hit after hit songs also had a feature film that played out the narrative of the album. Especially now, it would be impossible to not recognize Purple Rain and Prince's soundtrack to the film. What about the now un-watchable Yellow Submarine? Or any number of the films Elvis had been evolved in? "Visual albums" have been around for a long time; let's look a little more closely at a few and try to figure out what makes Lemonade Lemonade. Let me know in the comments if I've forgotten any visual albums!
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Let's start weird. Animal Collective is a Baltimore by way of New York band with a vacillating roster of players but most frequently includes Dave "Avey Tare" Portner, Brian "Geologist" Weitz, and Noah "Panda Bear" Lennox. Forth player Josh "Deakin" Dibb, when not hard at work on his recently released (and contender for album of the year) solo work, jumps in for the noise. In the instance of 2010's ODDSAC fifth member Danny Perez brings the weird alongside visual artist Abby Portner.
The MP3s for ODDSAC are often discussed and traded in fan forums. My first encounter with the work was audio only, and I hated it. Coming into Animal Collective via Strawberry Jams, I had no context for the more outlandish, experimental music fans flock to the band for.
I wrote that album off and continued following the band through EPs, new albums, solo side projects, tours, and earlier this year Painting With. Only recently have I returned to ODDSAC as a "visual album" and the effect of the work comes across much differently. First, the sonic space between the sounds and my ears gives the jarring sounds to disappeared before entering my brain. The visuals offer no such reprieve. It's spooky, it's icky, it's impossible to look away from. One scene, the birth of a meme, features Deakin as a vampire creeping around in the woods.
ODDSAC is not a compilation of music videos. The songs don't really have autonomy, from each other, or from the images. Listening to the MP3s, even after committing to enjoying the body of work, only thrives off the strength of my ability to recall whatever gooey scenes the songs are paired with.
People often associate specific feelings or memories with songs. A first kiss, to the tune of "Tongue Tied" by Grouplove, for example; what makes ODDSAC a "visual album" to me is that film director Perez and the band doesn't let you have the space to create your own associations. You get theirs, and you like it.
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For a movie that features a scene simulating the sex act using animated alien plants, and a giant talking butt as judge, jury, and executioner for the protagonist, The Wall feels very straightforward, at least compared to ODDSAC. The story is the same: Pink is a rock star in a time of gluttony and excess, haunted by the memories of the Great War, his childhood, his mother, drug abuse and groupies.
Director Alan Parker visualizes that literally. The songs from the album, which more or less are fully imported into the film, guide the narrative so well you could follow along with the lyrics sheet. Even without the musical component, The Wall could be viewed as a "normal" movie: it's got a story with characters who develop and grow, change and decline. There's a plot. Scenes contribute to a larger narrative; again, this isn't a collection of music videos.
One could argue that The Wall is essentially a rock and roll musical. Pink Floyd definitely envisioned it that way; look at how they had built entire tours around the production. So is The Wall a "visual album" or is it an album that has a movie? What is the difference?
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Let's take a moment of silence for Prince. 2016 has in many ways been very unkind to that generation of musicians. If you could find a positive in his passing, it is that the attention mourning has drawn is attracting new generations of listens to his music, including me (stay tuned for a by-the-track-first-listen commentary on Purple Rain). Like many, many others, I tuned in to MTV to watching Purple Rain the day Prince passed away.
Purple Rain doesn't call itself a "visual album" and the album itself is subtitled as a soundtrack, so there is even more distance between the music and visuals than The Wall or ODDSAC. But there is nevertheless a visual component. Much like The Wall, Purple Rain follows a linear narrative: young Prince is a kid prodigy rock and roller, trying to make it big. In walks Apollonia, and the kid and the old standard Morris Day compete to court her. There's a domestic drama, which culminates in the emotionally and physically charged performance of the film's title track. Right from the opening cut, "Let's Go Crazy," the movie establishes itself as an essentially long-form vehicle to show off Prince's sexuality, his incredible musical virtuosity, and to let audiences hear sides A & B of that album.
"Visual album"? Definitely not a collection of music videos, and even though the main attraction songs from the album are live performances Purple Rain really isn't a concert film either.
How necessary is the film for the album? If we're being honest, at least in my totally-un romanticized and un-nostalgic viewing of the film as a new fan, Purple Rain is at best kind of a bad flick, and at its worth an ugly portray of misogyny. But the album is one of the best pop records ever released. For me, for others hopefully, these two can be separated. I'm more likely to associate an image of Dave Chappell with the title track than I would the film.
Does Purple Rain help us define what a "visual album" is? Fictional rock-doc, half hearted concert film?
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Let's talk about what Lemonade isn't:
-not a collection of music videos
-not a feature film with a cohesive cast of characters who develop
-not an entirely abstract or abrasive collection of visuals
-not a documentary
-not a concert film
As a vehicle to deliver the music, we have a similar experience to what Beyonce concerts are like: spectacular choreography, challenging visuals, impressive and diverse costumes and apparel changes, but not always does the "visual album" center on Beyonce's singing.
Each song more or less ushers a change in attire, setting, so how aren't these just music videos like her 2013 self-titled "visual album" was? Like The Wall, the songs of Lemonade are tied together with a highly autobiographical narrative. Often, and especially as a creative writing teacher, I would dismiss the notion that the "I" in a narrative is exclusively the author, but in the instance of Lemonade which features scenes of Jay Z actually kissing Beyonce's feet
It is difficult for us to imagine a different context for some of these lyrics. Take, for example, “You know I give you life / if you try this shit again / you gon lose your wife “ or “tell him, boy, bye, middle fingers up” and as she softens and forgives: “Give me some time to prove that I can trust you again / I’m gonna kiss up and rub up and feel up on you.”
Drawing these conclusions, while possible with the lyrics alone, are aided in the way the narrative structure of the film is organized into separate parts: Intuition, Denial, Anger, Apathy, Emptiness, Accountability, Reformation, Forgiveness, Resurrection, Hope, and Redemption. With this handholding, a la Purple Rain filling in the "backstory" to what the title track means, we see the artist creating her own (true or not) lore and context for how these songs should be interpreted.
What makes Lemonade a visual album? There's something to look at that helps tell the story. The visual rhetoric enables Beyonce to be more heavy handed (look at the response to the video for "Formation") without over-loading lyrics with heavy handed metaphor. Alongside the film, songs of Lemonade can be genre-bending pop masterpieces, guitar heavy, country-influenced. But at its core, Lemonade is music. For me, nothing is lost only consuming these songs. The messages are clear. Should you see Lemonade? Yes. Should you listen to Lemonade? Yes. You should do both, early and often. As a creative multimedia work of art, Beyonce has pushed her talents to their fullest, and like she says:
"You ain't married to no average bitch, boy."
Visual, audio, whatever: you can hear and see that Lemonade is something special.