If albums were presented visually

By Jerrison Oracion, Senior Columnist

A visual component has started to become a bigger part of music albums than it used to be, as nowadays some releases include a music video for
every song. All of the music videos in the album can be related in a way to show a theme or create a story that would be very much like a movie.
Beck’s album The Information was one of the first albums to have a visual for the whole album, which not only came with a customizable cover with
stickers, but also with a visual DVD. Then, the visual aspect of an album went mainstream when Beyoncé’s two recent unannounced albums came

with visuals: Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016).

The visual of Lemonade is a 1 hour and 30 minute epic that talks about race relations in the United States. Just like the album, it aired
unannounced, showing on HBO before being put on Tidal. During Beyoncé’s acceptance speech after winning the Grammy Award for Best Adult
Alternative Album for the album, she called it a film more than an album. There are also other recent albums that have music videos for some songs,
but could have them for the other songs of the album as well. The visual of The Weeknd’s recent album Starboy (2016) would look like a 1980s

science fiction film and the visual of Ariana Grande’s recent aloum Dangerous Woman (2016) would be about feminism.

But what would happen if other aloums were also shown with a visual?

 

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Jerrison Oracion, Senior Columnist

If this album were a complete visual, we would see
Drake walking around his hometown of Toronto. It
would be raining in the city, so thunderstorms would
be likely to occur. We’d see Toronto from various views
including Yonge Street, a window in an apartment, the
top of a building, a club, and Drake’s car as he drives
through a major street in the city. When he gets to
specific areas, he remembers a certain memory in his
life and we’d get to see that through flashbacks. During
one scene, he’d pay homage to a road that he often
walked and he’d talk about all of the things that he did
with his friends on that road.

Next, we’d see him going to a Toronto Raptors game
in the Air Canada Center with a woman (though it
would not be Rihanna) and the Toronto Raptors win
the game. Then, we’d see him in a club and everyone
in the club dancing when One Dance is playing. After
that, Future would see Drake in his apartment and
they’d imagine winning a Grammy Award. Drake then
would see Rihanna in a cafe in Queen Street West and
they’d have a conversation about being too good for
each other, and questioning whether they are actually
dating. Finally, he would sits on the top of the CN
Tower shout out to a lot of people.

As a bonus, we would see various women in a call
center and Drake dancing in bright spaces.

 

Ma Fleur

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Rebecca Peterson, Humour Editor

Ma Fleur is a full-length studio aloum by the Cinematic
Orchestra, a modern jazz and electronic band created
in 1999 by Jason Swinscoe. This album is probably
best known for the song “To Build a Home” and its
coda “That Home,” which has been featured in shows,
movies, trailers, and commercials ever since its
release. However, the album in its entirety is something
of a masterpiece, concluding in an eight-minute track
titled “Time and Space.”

As a visual, | imagine the album playing out like a home
video converted into some kind of fancy arthouse

film, where the meaning is left ambiguous, with the
focus being more on the mood evoked by the visuals,
rather than a strict narrative. The album opens with the
well-known “To Build a Home,” a simple piano piece
backed with strings that captures the nostalgia and
longing for a place to feel truly safe and happy. One
can imagine their own childhood home, wherever they
were happiest, perhaps portrayed in short sepia clips
or black and white photographs as the song plays.
The rest of the album matches this tone and mood, a
sort of relaxed but evocative trance-like state, bringing
to mind forgotten memories. Pieces like “As the Stars
Fall” and “Into You” give a more nighttime, intimate
atmosphere to the aloum, something you might listen
to while sitting on a hill with someone you love, or
maybe someone you used to love long ago. “That
Home” brings us back to those images of a happier
time and place, before cascading into something vast
and unknown in the final piece, “Time and Space.”

 

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