Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd, is a Canadian rap/R&B artist from Toronto. Ever since his debut album, Thursday, released back in 2011, The Weeknd has been blessing his fans worldwide with incredibly produced, futuristic sounding, psychedelic, and melodic type of music. The Weeknd truly creates music, unlike anything anybody has ever heard before. This type of music has made Abel Tesfaye one of the most popular and highest-selling artists of all time. As somebody who has been a fan of The Weeknd’s work for almost a decade, I would love to take a closer look at some of The Weeknd’s most significant works of art and explore the genius that lies within the music.
A common theme in The Weeknd’s discography is the underlying, tragic tone his songs possess. Popular songs such as Starboy, Can’t Feel My Face, and Blinding Lights seem innocent enough after the first listen, however, when you look at the story and meaning behind each of those tracks, you discover horrible and sad themes behind Abel’s greatest hits. Like many other hyper-famous artists of this generation, The Weeknd’s most heartbreaking and most depressing music is his earliest. In Abel’s case, his 2011 trilogy of albums, Thursday, Echoes Of Silence, and House Of Balloons, are where you will find the most demons in The Weeknd’s music. Now, because I don’t feel like being sad at this moment in time, I’m not going to dive too far into the deeper meaning behind Abel’s music; instead, I’d rather talk about what I love most about his music; the way it sounds and makes me feel as a listener.
Ever since his trilogy days back in 2011, The Weeknd has been making classic after classic. Starting with his trilogy days, tracks that immediately caught my eye off his first three albums (which he eventually turned into one and named Trilogy) are songs that are now looked at as all-time classics in my eyes. Songs such as High for This, The Morning, Wicked Games, and Montreal fit this description perfectly, but if you were to ask me what my favorite track of the entire trilogy project I wouldn’t point to any of those songs. I’d point you in a completely different direction; I would suggest you to a song that I genuinely believe is perfect in every way, The Zone (featuring Drake). Another song for Trilogy that sticks out to me is D.D. A cover of the Michael Jackson hit, Dirty Diana.
Moving on to The Weeknd’s next major project, Kiss Land, Abel once again outdid himself. The Weeknd released Kiss Land in 2013, two years after his first three projects, and continued to move his career forward with his production-heavy music. Tracks such as Adaptation, Live For (featuring Drake), and Kiss Land are significant highlights of this album. Like in Trilogy, if you were to ask me to point you in the direction of my favorite song off Kiss Land, I would point you to the music with Drake’s feature. In this case, Live For is what I think is the song of the album. On Live For, The Weeknd does his thing with an incredible verse and very catchy hook that transitions perfectly into Drake’s verse. Although this song has two of my favorite artists of all time on it, what I think is the track’s highlight is its almost heavenly production behind The Weeknd’s hook and the start of Drake’s verse.
Two years later, in 2015, The Weeknd, once again, outdid himself as he released Beauty Behind the Madness. At the time, this would be Abel’s most successful album by a landslide. Songs such as Often, The Hills, and Can’t Feel My Face was on repeat on any pop, rap, or R&B radio station you would listen to. Also in the album was Earned It, which was used in the movie Fifty Shades of Grey. Looking back on the project today, I find it very difficult to find any song I wouldn’t consider at least a “good” piece, if not an “amazing” song. Tell Your Friends features one of the most excellent instrumentals in hip-hip history, Real Life has an indescribable hook that genuinely makes you shake your head and laugh at The Weeknd’s talent, and In The Night manages to be futuristic and remind you of an old Michael Jackson song at the same time. Almost every track on that album has something different that makes it stand out as a fantastic song. This would quickly turn into a trend in Abel’s subsequent two albums and turn The Weeknd from just another famous artist into being talked about in the same breath as Drake, Kanye West, and Taylor Swit as one the greatest most famous artists of the generation.
In 2016, The Weeknd released what I believe to be his greatest album to date, Starboy. When this project came out, it felt like The Weeknd’s ultimate masterpiece. He had an abundant combination of mega-popular radio hits mixed in with, once again, futuristic sounding less popular songs that were beautiful in their own way. In this album, The Weeknd added something a little unique and new to his discography. In Starboy, The Weeknd used features unlike he had ever done before. In my twenty years on this earth, I’ve never heard an album with better use of its features than the way The Weeknd uses his features on Starboy. Kendrick Lamar, Future, Lana Del Ray, and Daft Punk have outstanding performances throughout the entire album. I could honestly go on and on for days about this work of art, but there is still one more album to discuss, After Hours.
After Hours is The Weeknd’s most recent project, released last year in 2020, and has already surpassed every other one of Abel’s album sales and popularity. Going into detail and breaking down the real meaning behind all of the little intricacies behind After Hours would genuinely take all day. Still, I highly recommend anybody who is genuinely keen on The Weeknd’s work to do their research on that topic because it is truly eye-opening. Like so many of his albums before, The Weeknd manages to create music geared towards his old fans and music that radio stations love to play on repeat. If you have spent any time on social media or listening to the radio over the past year and a half, you have most definitely heard songs such as Blinding Lights, In Your Eyes, and Save Your Tears. Another place you might have listened to those songs is if you watched the Super Bowl halftime show last year and saw Abel perform those songs live.
The Weeknd has been in the mainstream spotlight since 2011, and at the rate, he is currently going at, that isn’t set to change anytime soon.