According to Screen Rant's Megan Summers, "visual albums are linked music videos or films released in conjunction with a record".
[9] According to Judy Berman of Pitchfork, visual albums result from the "synergistic connection between music and cinema that dates back to the latter art form’s birth".
When it became clear that talkies were to become the dominant form of cinema, there was a significant rise in musicians making use of the visual medium to bring their music to new audiences.
[12] The following decade saw a massive leap in the music industry's use of visual media, with Blondie's Eat to the Beat, released in 1979, being the first album in the rock era to be accompanied by videos for every song.
[13] Jackson would eventually stretch his cinematic ambitions to feature-film length with 1988's Moonwalker, just as Prince had done four years earlier with Purple Rain.
's final studio album, 2011's Collapse into Now also featured at least one music video for every song, spearheaded by vocalist Michael Stipe.
Unlike B'day's year-long wait for a complete visual companion in 2007, Beyoncé and its 17 videos were made available exclusively through the iTunes Store immediately upon release.
[2] “Lemonade” draws from the prolific literary, musical, cinematic, and aesthetic sensibilities of black cultural producers to create a rich tapestry of poetic innovation.
Other artists like Frank Ocean,[10] Kanye West,[10] Solange, Halsey, Twenty One Pilots,[32] Travis Scott and Sia[33] have all released projects described as visual albums to different streaming services.