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Abel Tesfaye, the Canadian singer who performs as the Weeknd, is perhaps his generation’s most committed self-mythologist. Early in his career, he obscured his identity while his moody, debased mixtapes became cult favorites. These early recordings presented a nihilistic and drug-addled world view, and a bracing reimagination of R. & B. Tesfaye eventually stepped out from the shadows, and as his star grew his aesthetic and narrative ambitions became more grandiose. His music has served as a vehicle for haunting, bombastic fantasies, often with himself as the villain. Over the years, he has performed at awards shows wearing a post-surgical face bandage; he’s launched a promotional “Halloween Horror Nights” haunted house at Universal Studios; he’s presented his musical vision in the form of dark cinematic trilogies. His last album, “Dawn FM,” from 2022, took the form of a throwback FM radio show, punctuated by slow-talking guest interludes and the sound of radio fuzz. As he has become one of the most streamed artists in the world, his records have turned into meta-commentaries on the nature of pop stardom.
In 2023, Tesfaye turned to a different medium to express his ideas about celebrity: he co-created a TV series with Sam Levinson, the directorial provocateur behind “Euphoria,” for HBO. Shot partly in Tesfaye’s own mansion in L.A., “The Idol” tells the story of a tortured mononymous pop star named Jocelyn, played by Lily-Rose Depp. She is at a crossroads in her career in the aftermath of her abusive mother’s death, and she falls under the spell of a shadowy night-club owner named Tedros Tedros, played by Tesfaye. Tedros is part mastermind, part buffoon, part cult leader, and all sleaze. He and Jocelyn forge a sadomasochistic bond, and their psychosexual and artistic power struggle culminates in a strange reunion onstage at one of Jocelyn’s stadium shows.
“The Idol” was plagued by reported production delays, major staffing overhauls, and disruptive rewrites and reshoots; the version that was ultimately broadcast by HBO presented a muddled vision, its incoherence not quite disguised by the aggressive depravity of its scripts and its slick production. It became a punch line and a source of minor moral panic among television critics, who couldn’t figure out exactly what Levinson and Tesfaye were trying to say. The show represented both a commercial and a narrative failure, and was cancelled after its initial five-episode season. Tesfaye, unaccustomed to being so misunderstood, made a rare break with his pop-star persona, striking back at detractors on Twitter with a frustration that bordered on desperation: “People who hate it decided a long time ago… it’s fine. If you hate it don’t watch it. And let the fans enjoy… simple.” Even though “The Idol” had plenty of aesthetic synergy with the music Tesfaye had made as the Weeknd, it turned out that his ideas about fame and deviance didn’t translate well to the screen.
“Hurry Up Tomorrow,” Tesfaye’s first major project since “The Idol” was released, is a much clearer, more effective document. It finds Tesfaye—or at least his Weeknd persona—in a state of extraordinary anguish and self-destruction. The third in a trilogy (following “After Hours,” from 2020, and “Dawn FM”), “Hurry Up Tomorrow” positions Tesfaye at the brink, recounting his drug abuse and near-death experiences: “I fell asleep in the tub, I was met with paralysis,” he sings on a verse from “Baptized in Fear,” a song that slows his gleaming eighties synth-pop style down to a sludgy, morose cadance. “All the times I dodged death, this can’t be the way it ends, no.” On “Big Sleep,” an atmospheric track, co-produced by Giorgio Moroder, there’s a moment when the recording sounds as if it’s been submerged in water or flames. The song switches tempo and arrangements, and the thirty-four-year-old’s voice appears through the haze, resigned: “Well, you barely put up a fight / Ready for the forever night / Big sleep, big sleep, oh.”
Fans of the Weeknd have become desensitized to this relentless gloom. It’s been his trademark for more than a decade, and it has mostly lost its power to make an impression. The character Tesfaye has created through the Weeknd is compelling but obstinate, leaving him little room for evolution. As a result, his body of work—bolstered by his singular vocal power and his undeniable ear for pop songwriting—is impressively consistent, if sometimes tediously so. The thematic and tonal constraints of the Weeknd project force Tesfaye to innovate in style and lyricism, and the times when he breaks form are some of the most exciting of his œuvre. “Hurry Up Tomorrow” contains a handful of his most invigorating and novel songs. Two early tracks on the album reimagine Latin rhythms in the mode of lightly industrial eighties synth-pop. On “Sao Paolo,” a collaboration with the Brazilian star Anitta, Tesfaye sounds energized by the gut-punch of a baile-funk beat. These sharp, bracing periods are too infrequent, though, and the back half of the album drifts into a kind of vaporous dream state that verges on self-indulgent.
Despite the overwhelming fatalism of its first stretch, “Hurry Up Tomorrow” does strive for a form of spiritual redemption for Tesfaye. He’s an artist who still believes in the storytelling power of the album, and there are a few moments where he seems to glance toward the horizon in search of resolution. On “Give Me Mercy,” he sounds like a religious convert basking in the glow of salvation. “Give me mercy like you do,” he sings on the chorus. The eponymous final track of the record takes the most confessional and heartfelt turn we ever see from him, as he apologizes to his mother and explores his fear of abandonment. “I want heaven when I die / I wanna change / I want the pain no more,” he sings. These may be the final words Tesfaye utters as the Weeknd. In 2023, he told an interviewer that “Hurry Up Tomorrow” will likely be his last album under the stage name. The announcement was striking not because of its finality but because of its tacit admission that the alter ego had reached its limits.
The Weeknd performed his swan song from the recent album at the Grammys, on Sunday night, an unexpected rupture in the artist’s four-year boycott of the ceremony. In 2020, the Grammys failed to nominate the track “Blinding Lights” for any awards. It was a glaring oversight: the song was not only Tesfaye’s biggest hit but confirmation that he could translate his vision to a more propulsive, upbeat sound. Tesfaye, in the years that followed, declined to submit his music for consideration from the Recording Academy. His appearance Sunday night was introduced by the Academy C.E.O., Harvey Mason, Jr. “I remember waking up to the headlines that the Weeknd called out the Academy for lack of transparency in our awards,” Mason told the crowd.“But, you know what, criticism is O.K. I heard him. I felt his conviction.” It was a curious thing, for an artist so hellbent on being an enigma, to want transparency from an institution. Tesfaye appeared on the stage to perform a swaggering, elaborate rendition of the new single “Cry for Me.” Shrouded in a hood and sunglasses, he still seemed reticent to surrender his protective armor. ♦
Sourse: newyorker.com
