We can’t wait for The Weeknd to begin give in…
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[4.17]
Tobi Tella: The Peter Pan of cocaine and women finally has to grow up! After Hours was the first time I’ve really fully bought into the hype; it was nice to feel some sense of progression in the persona alongside the fun songs. There’s a lot of vulnerability here in a less overblown way than normal, and it helps me try to swallow things like saying Coachella was brazy.
[6]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: If “Tell Your Friends” was The Weeknd at his most glorious, a faux-70s funk rock luxuriation in self-mythology, “Snowchild” feels like the reunion record from circa 1985, all the exciting excess trimmed off to reveal the hollow space of ego underlying it. It’s a song that is so steeped in self-regard that I can’t imagine anyone other than Abel himself enjoying it.
[2]
Will Adams: Gorgeous instrumental — a late-night, walking-through-the-city desolation that evokes Sofi de la Torre — and, at its core, a fittingly retrospective concept (“leaving into the night” goes the simple chorus). But Abel’s insistence on undercutting all that with a smattering of similes, each one goofier than the last, makes for a dissonant listen.
[5]
Kylo Nocom: “Futuristic sex, give her Philip K. dick” is a fantastic quip out of context. Hearing it rendered in sensitive falsetto over decaying synths is one of this year’s greatest disappointments.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: If you told me the verse phrasing came from a demo of Julia Michaels imitating a Weeknd song, I guess as an inside joke with Selena, I’d believe you; if you told me Abel thought he nailed the timing on the Philip K. Dick joke, or even knew it was a joke, I wouldn’t. It’s just weird references all around. Name-dropping Eminem and Jay-Z would have been lazy when he was praying at 16, let alone quarantining in 2020; mentioning Coachella hookups and Swayze in this close succession inevitably brings to mind the respective Frank Ocean singles, which do this better. “This,” of course, is the Weeknd’s usual hedonism comedown plaint, crossed here with Why I’m Leaving LA. But per form, it’s got a narcotic, heavy-lidded lull, and more importantly I’m a sentimental piece of shit who just last week teared up at the background music for a constellation broadcast. I underrated “Blinding Lights,” and it’s totally plausible I’d really feel this on some train at 3 a.m., leaving someplace you would leave at 3 a.m. But we don’t do that anymore.
[4]
Alfred Soto: Philip K. Dick, “dirty like I’m Swayze,” walking in the snow — Abel Tesfaye hopes the references cohere into an autobiographical narrative recollected in, if not tranquility, measured grief, signified by that falsetto. But Weeknd songs collapse as quickly into pronunciamentos against The Girl: for leaving, for staying, for making him feel sad.
[4]