The Weeknd Is Music’s Largest Idea Artist

With the discharge of his upcoming album, Hurry Up Tomorrow, The Weeknd seems to finish a trilogy of initiatives begun by his 2020 album, After Hours, and continued by its 20022 followup, Daybreak FM. Trilogies are one thing of a recurring theme for the Canadian famous person, because it was his trio of haunting mixtapes (2011’s Home Of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence) that first put him on the map as a moody, mysterious musician with a multilayered strategy to songwriting. He’s expanded on that fame ever since, reworking so fully for every new launch, that he’s develop into music’s largest idea artist.

In beginning his present, ongoing trilogy, The Weeknd not solely took a giant musical swing in a brand new sonic path, however he additionally crafted a weird character to swimsuit the glittering, synth-heavy sounds. Whereas he kicked off the rollout for After Hours by introducing his red-and-black swimsuit and retro stunna shades within the video for “Heartless,” it was the follow-up video for “Blinding Lights” that actually set the tone for the After Hours period; the bloodied protagonist, wandering the Las Vegas strip to the pulse-pounding sounds of synthwave created the unsettling distinction that may outline that album’s messaging.

With every new visible from the album, that unsettling vibe bought increasingly horrific. The After Hours brief movie discovered Crimson being compelled by unseen forces, whereas the gory “In Your Eyes” video subverted its personal horror-thriller tropes, ending with Crimson decapitated by the lady he seemed to be stalking all through the clip. By the point of the “Too Late” video, Crimson’s head had been transplanted onto a brand new physique by cosmetic surgery addicts in Beverly Hills, organising the eye-popping, puffy-faced model from the “Save Your Tears” video, which ended on one more ambivalent word, with Crimson lastly getting one thing akin to closure.

Just like the previous period, the change over to Daybreak FM occurred step by step. The “Take My Breath” video carried over a few of its predecessor’s attributes, however now, Abel’s swimsuit was black-on-black, the violence was toned down and extra psychosexual. If the After Hours visuals had been involved with the violence inherent within the pursuit of the hedonistic life-style loved by Crimson, then Daybreak FM‘s visuals seemed on the sexual and social repercussions thereof. Black finds himself trapped in a soul-stealing ritual within the video for “Sacrifice,” ending the video along with his youth stripped away.

In “Gasoline,” he’s haunted by ghoulish specters and a youthful doppelgänger that taunt him at what seems to be a crowded nightclub. The elder Black returns to get revenge on his double in “Out Of Time,” solely to seek out himself shedding his identification even additional within the voyeuristic video for “Is There Somebody Else?” Musically, Daybreak FM slides all around the dial, from simple listening to pulsating EDM. In describing the album’s themes, he likened it to “being caught in site visitors ready to succeed in the sunshine on the finish of the tunnel” in a state of purgatory after loss of life.

If something, “Dancing In The Flames,” the primary video from Hurry Up Tomorrow reinforces and doubles down on that concept, that includes one more Weeknd character getting right into a violent encounter, this time, ending up on the improper facet of a face-off with a semi truck. His newest character finally ends up wandering a ghostly wasteland and seeing a lightweight that would characterize the afterlife. Followers have speculated that if Daybreak FM was about Purgatory and that made After Hours about Hell, then maybe Hurry Up Tomorrow will discover Abel coming into the Pearly Gates.

Or not. If something, the Toronto native is known for his swerves, for providing up the sudden, and for crafting initiatives that defy expectations. Whereas it may very well be argued that he is likely to be getting overly reliant on these convoluted narratives to inform his tales — even on stage, he’s been recognized to include characters, like his The Idol antihero Tedros, or regardless of the knockoff MF DOOM factor he did in Spain was presupposed to be — the reality is, this fixed reinvention has been an enormous a part of constructing his recognition to what it’s right this moment. By letting his creativeness run wild, he retains discovering fertile new veins of creativity that preserve him on the high of his craft.