The Weeknd - Starboy

Pitchfork 67

Who is the Weeknd? That’s the question a lot of us asked when the act first materialized, fully-formed, with 2011’s House of Balloons. Thanks to the group’s savvy anti-publicity campaign, the question had a literal bent: who are the people who made these songs? Fast-forward five years and there’s little mystery remaining when it comes to the provenance of the Weeknd’s music—like so many modern pop songs, his are now designed in consultation with a committee of experts. And yet, even as we watch Abel Tesfaye walk the red carpet in the light of day, the question remains: Who is the Weeknd? Is he a drugged-out lothario? A beloved pop star? A nihilist foil to Drake? The second coming of Michael Jackson? The runaway success of last years’ Beauty Behind the Madness—two No. 1 singles and over two million units sold in the U.S.—seemed like it might finally force an answer to this question. And yet, Starboy, the Weeknd’s sixth overall album and third for a major label, only further muddies the waters.

Initially, there were signs that Starboy would represent a much-needed pivot, a rethinking of a sound and image that seemed to have run its course, from DIY mixtapes to the top of the charts. The album’s lead video features Tesfaye murdering a past version of himself before taking a cross-shaped bat to a condo full of awards and sales plaques. Starboy, however, is hardly a dramatic reinvention—if anything, it feels like a watered-down retread of the same old tropes. Beauty Behind the Madness managed to smuggle sleaze into the mainstream by refining Tesfaye’s pop songcraft, even as it doubled down on the darkness. Starboy eases up on both fronts, recycling melodies, ideas, and even whole songs while presenting a sanitized version of the Weeknd that often lacks any real sense of perspective. It’s a curious move for a guy who so decisively managed to succeed on his own terms.

As if to guarantee that it feels like a slog, Starboy is also overstuffed: over an hour of music stretching out over 18 songs, many of them bland. “Rockin’” sounds like a label executive’s idea of what the Weeknd could be: inoffensive club pop tailor-made for office karaoke parties (“I just want your body next to me/’Cause it brings me so much ecstasy/We can just be rockin’, yeah”). “False Alarm” snatches defeat from the jaws of victory, its sublime opening harmonies devolving into a screamed chorus that’s as contrived as Michael Jackson’s bellow at the beginning of “Scream.” “Six Feet Under,” a collaboration with Future, is essentially just a rewrite of the pair's much sharper “Low Life” (“Reminder” also recycles the vocal melody from “Low Life”); both here and on “All I Know,” the melodically-gifted rapper feels sorely underutilized. Kendrick Lamar’s verse on the autotune-heavy “Sidewalks” is characteristically dexterous but even he sounds a bit unenthused to be here. It’s hard to blame him.

There are a few bright spots on Starboy, moments that feel guided by a stronger vision. Both of the Daft Punk collaborations are satisfying, if hardly groundbreaking; “Starboy” glides like a sleek, high-performance car, while “I Feel It Coming” sounds like a slowed-down version of “Get Lucky.” “Secrets” pushes the Weeknd’s nocturnal sound into new wave territory, borrowing washes of clean guitar from Tears for Fears’ “Pale Shelter” and lifting the chorus from the Romantics’ “Talking in Your Sleep” wholesale. “True Colors” sounds like a ’90s R&B slow burner produced by Noah “40” Shebib (who was once apocryphally rumored to have ghost produced for the Weeknd). And “Ordinary Life” proves that Tesfaye is still more than capable of raising eyebrows, opening with a vivid description of fellatio behind the wheel before taking a hard left into petite mort fatalism (“David Carradine, I’ma die when I come”).

Starboy’s most interesting song is barely even a song. The two-minute-long “Stargirl Interlude,” finds Lana Del Rey reprising her role as Tesfaye’s foil, relating a pornographic “vision” over a minimal backing track, before Tesfaye closes out the song by cooing, “I just want to see you shine, ’cause I know you are a Stargirl.” The brief snippet is filled with the sort of tension that’s so lacking from most of Starboy, playing up the theatrics for which both artists are known. “I feel like we’ve always been talking to each other through our music,” Tesfaye said of Del Rey in an interview last year. “She is the girl in my music, and I am the guy in her music.” Here, the pair embrace that meta-narrative, responding to their perceived lack of authenticity by retreating fully into the pop fantasy where their characters connect. It’s a boldly self-aware move, one that smartly manages to wring art from artifice.

Starboy could use a lot more of this kind of audacity or really, any kind of coherent storytelling that challenges, complicates or further illuminates our understanding of the unfeeling villain that Tesfaye has been playing since day one. Instead, we get a grab bag of difficult to reconcile contradictions: a “Party Monster,” on one track, a doe-eyed balladeer on another (“Die for You”). Tesfaye used to be near-obsessive about packaging projects that felt narratively whole—after all, this is the guy who released an entire trilogy of interconnected albums in his first year. Starboy, by way of contrast, feels more like an opportunistic compilation of B-sides than an album. Who is the Weeknd? At this point, even the man behind the curtain might not know.

The Guardian 60

The musically omnivorous Abel Tesfaye has mainstream stardom in his sights with this overlong but persuasive album

Canadian R&B singer the Weeknd pulled out of Rihanna’s European tour back in March to record more music – a move that flew in the face of contemporary pop economics. Recorded music doesn’t make much money – touring does.

A year on from Beauty Behind the Madness, his Grammy-winning, US triple-platinum pop rebirth, Starboy shows off the fruits of a solid business decision. Abel Tesfaye may play at being ambivalent about his superstar status, but his third album still has mainstream massiveness firmly in its crosshairs, with even more overt pop influences to the fore.

Kendrick Lamar lands a pulverising verse on Sidewalks. Just as startling is its cheesewire electric guitar flurry

Drowned In Sound 60

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. His lust still wanders and the games are very much as wicked, they’re just a great deal more palatable to the casual ear. 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. A lot.

Starboy ultimately finds its leading light adrift, but the initial launch is one for the books. 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’ never really comes out of first gear because it simply doesn’t need to. 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. It is one of the songs of 2016.

‘Party Monster’ is similar in that you could easily dismiss it as musically one-dimensional but Tesfaye’s command is exceptional. 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. 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. The party and the after party, if you will.

This war of the self manifests itself in different ways, some of which are truly intriguing. ‘False Alarm’ has been met with near-universal derision and though that feels unfair, its marriage of styles doesn’t gel. 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. Still, it’s a noble failure with plenty to admire. The greater conflict is considerably more problematic, however.

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”. 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.

Starboy is all about this difficult dichotomy, even when it achieves effective compartmentalisation. 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:

Flecked 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. Standard enough fare, really, and worryingly egotistical.

As with writing for a big audience in mind, ego should play its part in the realm of pop. Hell, it brought Tesfaye to the dance in the first place. 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. At 18 tracks deep, that’s, well, alarming. A seeming lack of quality control leads to clunkers like ‘True Colours’ – an exhausting R Kelly B-side and easily the worst song in the entire Weeknd canon – and ‘All I Know’, which brings a second, totally unmemorable guest turn from Future.

The decision to bloat his third record proper also brings Tesfaye and the listener to ‘I Feel It Coming’, which finds the lovable French robots still stuck in Random Access Memories mode, so it’s fine, it’s grand, it’ll do, it should be a lot better. Starboy is fine, it’s grand and it will do, and it really should be so much more.

You get glimpses – Kendrick Lamar’s verse on ‘Sidewalks’ does indeed live up to the slightly panicked reassuring billing (I guess Tesfaye was as concerned as the rest of us when K-Dot pitched up on that risible recent Maroon 5 song), Lana Del Rey is utilised better than she was on ‘Prisoner’ and there’s a cute nod to The Romantics on ‘Secrets’, but too often The Weeknd repeats himself or goes into Michael Jackson mode with mixed results; ‘Love To Lay’, for instance, is great fun but c’mon man, don a red leather jacket of your own.

You have a phenomenal voice. Find it again, please.