By: Anthony Danilov
It’s no surprise that ever since “Starboy,” The Weeknd, Abel Tesfaye, has become pretty mainstream and therefore has pivoted toward a more pop-focused sound with his music. In his early transitions, he was doing pop in a way that was different and felt like a fresh revamp of 80’s pop. It didn’t feel too on the nose. However, with his final trilogy as “The Weeknd” coming to an end, it feels as if Tesfaye is giving fans less and less insight to who he is and is instead choosing the route of the generic star who panders to the higher-ups of labels and finds no problem in selling out – leaving integrity on the back burner.
I don’t believe in blindly following an artist, no matter how much you love them, and with Tesfaye’s recent announcement of “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” The Weeknd’s final hurrah feels lost. The album’s title is completely devoid of any true meaning and feels like a last-minute decision, creatively speaking. Many fans believe that they’ve cracked the code on what “Hurry Up Tomorrow” means for The Weeknd, but every comment left on the topic comes off more and more like the aesthetic filler that Abel has a knack for – monkey see, monkey do.
Aside from that, the hype for an album has simply died down. Just like his fellow artists, Taylor Swift and Harry Styles, touring for months on end can really have that effect. As an artist with an amassed fan base you have the unique advantage of using scarcity to your advantage, but when your name is appearing in the headlines every other day to no avail of any new music, things can start to get a bit tiresome.
The way I see it, Tesfaye decided to start teasing his project way too early on and therefore suffered from indecisiveness. For one, the album cover and colors concerning this final era confused his fanbase. Everyone seemed to be expecting deep blues or a purple tone for the visual palette guiding the album, just as he teased in the early beginning of it’s rollout, yet as time went on it seemed Tesfaye had all of a sudden decided to revert to an “After Hours” red, which read to me as even more pandering. It seemed the pressure he was facing to deliver a final great project must have got to him and he went with the safest option; delivering aesthetics that match what his fans consider to be his best work.
In regards to the story, in “After Hours” we saw Abel’s alter ego (The Weeknd) “crash out,” essentially, and recollect his crazy journey as a celebrity consumed by drugs and toxic love. With “Dawn FM,” especially with the music video for the sole single “Take My Breath,” it was clear that listeners were entering the end of the life of “The Weeknd” and seeing his death take him to purgatory. As the album plays out, Jim Carrey takes the mantle to narrate The Weeknd through the world of ’103.5 Dawn FM’, a radio station that plays as the soundtrack to his time there until he reaches the end – what is teased, throughout many of the tracks on the album to be “After Life.” Right there and then it seemed so clear where Abel was heading with his story.
What made me, and many other fans, legitimately upset, is that all that build-up and storytelling seemed to have been thrown out the window with “Hurry Up Tomorrow.” We thought for the final record we would be heading into a rebirth for his alter ego and, confusingly enough, up until recently, it seemed that Abel was feeding into that narrative as well. Countless (weird) visuals were posted on a daily basis on Instagram of Tesfaye and his AI version of his younger self, magazine interviews explaining his creative perception, and just as everything seemed to click…”Hurry Up Tomorrow!”
Now, with the album’s lead single “Dancing in the Flames” out as well, the rollout is leaving more and more fans unexcited. The song itself comes off as a “Dawn FM” throwaway that could be used for some type of commercial which, what do you know? That’s exactly what it was used for. The single’s music video was in fact a commercial for none other than Apple and their new iPhone 16 Pro. Not only was it painfully clear the video was shot in your regular Hollywood backlot, but the direction was dreadfully aimless. For four minutes, The Weeknd gave us nothing new or exciting with visuals that were disappointingly uninspiring and lyrics that seemed to be written by OpenAI. Not a good look for Tesfaye or Apple.
All this is not to say that both “After Hours” and “Dawn FM” were not amazing world-building projects that are arguably some of his best work – at least in this era of his artistry. The single choices for his past two projects were basic pop records too, whether it be “Blinding Lights” for “After Hours” or the aforementioned “Take My Breath” for “Dawn FM” but they were a side of Abel which we hadn’t seen before. They felt passionate. “Dawn FM,” to this day, is still my favorite project from him just because of how committed he was to the concept built behind every single track he recorded.
At the end of the day, artists are going to do brand deals and partner with companies. It’s a part of the business and can lead to a wonderful result if done tastefully. But when one of the biggest musicians in the world kicks off their magnum opus without any sort of effort – that is when you lose my attention. So can I say that I’m excited about this new final installment for The Weeknd? No. Not whatsoever.