004. "Dawn FM", The Weeknd (2022)
There is no artist alive quite like The Weeknd. The Toronto native, né Abel Tesfaye, originated with a trilogy of melancholic, mixed-genre mixtapes, and within a decade, found himself climbing the charts of R&B, pop, and garnering the attention of the world.
It’s difficult to think of an artist of Tesfaye’s stature in pop culture whose rise to fame mirrors his own; it’s a truly unique and seismic rags-to-riches Internet age chronicle. Devoted listeners will recall his sudden debut release in 2011, House of Balloons, an anonymously-released mixtape telling tales of lust, overindulgence, and the consequences they engender. The subject matter later proved to serve as a thematic proof of concept for Tesfaye: the artist often bounces between braggadocious, hyper-sanguine tales of glory and rapacious declarations of emotional vulnerability.
The mixtape made waves immediately — the artist’s budding audience was enamored by the debut, praising its congruent amalgamation of genres and potent lyricism. Balloons was a prima facie R&B production, but nobody was quite prepared for an R&B mixtape sampling Beach House, Cocteau Twins, and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Tesfaye went on to release two additional mixtapes that same year, Thursday and Echoes of Silence, but maintained an air of mystique while continuing to receive widespread critical acclaim and developing a cult-like following. The artist had released singles on Youtube since 2009, but he didn’t show his face to the world until his first live performance following the release of Balloons, and didn’t complete his first press interview until 2013. His initial anonymity allowed him to release music while still working at American Apparel, where he remained silent as coworkers praised the unknown artist’s music.
Now, eleven years later, The Weeknd is a bona fide household name — and he’s earned it*. He’s released collaborations with artists like Drake, Kanye West, Ariana Grande, and Lana Del Rey; his single “Earned It” was featured in Fifty Shades of Grey, earning the artist an Oscar nomination and a Grammy win; and, most importantly, he played himself circa 2012 in the Safdie Brothers film Uncut Gems. Nothing says success like doing cocaine with Julia Fox in a bathroom. (The film’s inclusion of The Weeknd cements it as a period piece in my mind, but that’s a separate thinkpiece that I have too much pride to write.)
The Weeknd’s ascension is near impossible to comprehend: the once faceless, nameless Canadian auteur behind a swiftly erupting trilogy of mixtapes went on to perform the 2021 Super Bowl Halftime Show and sell out stadiums across the planet. After eleven years, Tesfaye has proven himself to be deviceful and adaptable, tuning into influences of punk, disco, and EDM to create effervescent, addicting pop music.
Dawn FM is, thus far, the grand culmination of Tesfaye’s musical prowess. Best described as a concept album, the record is meant to take you on a storied journey through purgatory led by a radio DJ, evoking an entrancing tunnel of spirits arousing retrospect on life and love. The record’s cover art reveals the artist aged and withered, engrossed in wrinkles and a halo of grey hair. Mellifluously narrated by none other than Jim Carrey, Tesfaye’s real-life neighbor and original inspiration as an artist, Dawn FM is a fifty-two minute marvel. It’s a pulsing and psychedelic experience, mounted with punching beats and talking synth lines. With contributions from Calvin Harris, Max Martin, Oneohtrix Point Never, and more, the record is a landscape of dance music’s best and brightest.
Dawn FM is poised as a follow-up to Tesfaye’s preceding record, After Hours, setting a musically high bar for Tesfaye and co. to surmount. Upon its release, After Hours was widely considered to be his best work yet, fitted with a string of hit singles and a hefty serving of performance art — promotional images, music videos, and appearances showed Tesfaye bleeding or engulfed in gauze.
If After Hours is meant to evoke a drug-fueled night in Las Vegas culminating in the protagonist’s death, Dawn FM is the natural conclusion. I struggle to identify which of the two I favor; both records are executed exceptionally, leaving little room for scrutiny or substitution (in my mind), but I happen to like Dawn FM’s concept more. It feels like the pinnacle of Tesfaye’s ethos, in a way: after over a decade of singing about mindless indulgences, the artist looks back at his life and within himself. There exists an argument that the entirety of Tesfaye’s discography can be interpreted this way: his exaggeratedly confident tracks like “Reminder” and “Heartless” come off as a murky core of insecurity veiled in layers of hypermasculinity, drug abuse, and wealth. Such songs are irreplaceable, a formative component of Tesfaye’s work as a whole, but there’s something comforting in the plaintive admissions explored in Dawn FM.
And Dawn FM is deliciously fluid, a reverie weaving in-and-out of the mind. Each song is an earworm, infectious and ripe, Tracks like “Gasoline”, “How Do I Make You Love Me?”, “Take My Breath”, and “Sacrifice” are designed to feel like parts of a whole, providing the experience of a flustering, trilling catatonia. Moments of relief do arrive — interlude-like tracks serve as a reminder of the intended radio-station-experience. “A Tale by Quincy” provides a reflective monologue from famed producer Quincy Jones as he laments a befuddling childhood and parenting failures: “Looking back is a bitch, isn’t it?”
Tesfaye has proven an innate ability to create songs that feel like they’ve been around forever — in that, every track possesses a familiar energy, the kind that beckons you to move, to dance, to free yourself, but its futuristic, psychomimetic production provides a finesse distinguishing Tesfaye from his contemporary peers. Songs like “Out of Time” and “I Heard You’re Married” sound as if they were plucked out of an ‘80s catalog and infused with a contemporary edge. In other words, the Weeknd is a hit machine: his latest and most successful work rests at the fulcrum point between body and mind, spawning dance tracks screaming with synth and bass lines so thick you could run your fingers through it while crooning pleas for a lost love. Tesfaye is far from the first artist to weave melancholic doctrine into a synthpop soundscape, but he may be one of the best.
*Haha nice
Listen to the playlist here!