Starboy doesn’t just double down on his signature kiss-and-tell-and-then-get-upset-about-it style, though, it tells you over and over and over again something that you’ve known and understood for years.
Hell, it brought Tesfaye to the dance in the first place. Standard enough fare, really, and worryingly egotistical.Īs with writing for a big audience in mind, ego should play its part in the realm of pop. One only need take 12 minutes to watch the accompanying film M A N I A to get the complete picture of The Weeknd 2016, which picks up immediately following the conclusion of the ‘Starboy’ video:įlecked with cuts from the record, the beautiful-looking - thanks to Natasha Braier, who worked similar aesthetic wonders on Nicholas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon this year – short offers up a vivid distillation of Abel Tesfaye’s opulent excess expensive sports cars, neon-soaked nightclubs, blood-drenched victory in violence, and dominance over a dead-eyed supermodel who is also apparently a giant panther. Starboy is all about this difficult dichotomy, even when it achieves effective compartmentalisation. Minutes later, he’s bouncing off the walls once more on ‘Rockin’, the kind of gaudy and generic – though undeniably catchy – EDM/R’n’B collision that blares at ear-splitting volume in tragically hip clothes shops. We get an early flashpoint in ‘Reminder’, where Tesfaye glides over a winningly simple arrangement with supreme confidence as he details discomfort and resentment at finding himself winning youth-centric awards for ‘Can’t Feel My Face’, lamenting that he’s ”not a Teen Choice”. The greater conflict is considerably more problematic, however. Still, it’s a noble failure with plenty to admire. The verses are superb, as Tesfaye feeds off kinetic bursts of energy until the chorus finds him playing a game of one-upmanship that his hand isn’t quite up to. ‘False Alarm’ has been met with near-universal derision and though that feels unfair, its marriage of styles doesn’t gel. This war of the self manifests itself in different ways, some of which are truly intriguing. The party and the after party, if you will. This is often when The Weeknd is at its most interesting the push-pull that his satyr-like existence stirs within the cloudiest recesses of the brain.
Taking control over a horror movie arrangement as he did on ‘The Hills’, he peppers a typical empty dalliance with dark dovetails - ”I’m like, got up, thank the Lord for the day / Woke up by a girl, I don’t even know her name” before surrendering to paranoia.
‘Party Monster’ is similar in that you could easily dismiss it as musically one-dimensional but Tesfaye’s command is exceptional. It is an exercise in restraint, a flexing of production muscles (and money) and the kind of vocal acuity that few artists are capable of. ‘Starboy’ never really comes out of first gear because it simply doesn’t need to. The Daft Punk-assisted title track really is glorious the kind of gorgeous waltz that trips up those who don’t understand the majesty of subtlety. Starboy ultimately finds its leading light adrift, but the initial launch is one for the books. That’s no bad thing, especially when you’re still determined to register as the biggest name in pop, but you’ve heard this one before. His lust still wanders and the games are very much as wicked, they’re just a great deal more palatable to the casual ear. In the case of Abel Tesfaye and The Weeknd, his latest manoeuvre amidst the cutthroat world of mass-market pop shouldn’t surprise anyone who fucked with last summer’s Beauty Behind the Madness. While the late Leonard Cohen famously observed that such surface-level flaws allow for light to creep in, there are instances where structural defects register as concerning. The difficulty with trying to be all things to all concerned is that, inevitably, cracks will appear.