After a long wait and a much-ado about everything, the new Weeknd album ‘After Hours’ has finally dropped. And here is your first real look at the album.
This 14-track LP firstly broke records even before it was released. Republic Records, the label under which this album was released, let some insider sources know that the album had crossed 975,000 pre-adds, which is an equivalent of pre-orders, on Apple Music. So close to a million!
This is the Weeknd’s third album after ‘My Dear Melancholy’ and ‘Starboy’ and people are listening closely, now more than ever. The album features songs like Heartless, Blinding Lights, and After Hours that The Weeknd has already released in the course of the climb up to dropping the album. We knew m, based on those tracks what to expect from the album, especially given a very graphic short film ‘After Hours’ that was made as a bit of a walk away from the Jimmy Kimmel Show and in there we saw him navigating between stardom and the trauma it has left him with — with literal bloody scars we see in the video.
Now in this album we see music we have come to know Weeknd for. It can safely be said that none of the songs from the 14 that we have been offered are in any way a departure from his usual style. The music finds itself in the same muddle of, albeit masterful, studio instruments and the lyrics are in the vicinity of drugs, fame, women, and the different cars that have been inspiring sputtered throughout.
In ‘Faith’ we hear him hurting and wanting you to join him in being miserable together, “But if I OD, I want you to OD right beside me.” In ‘Escape From LA’, which this particular fan thinks might be a reference to Bojack Horseman’s boat in the very popular Netflix show which also is a struggle of a ‘famous’ with drugs that do not seem to leave his side, we see him in tryst with a city and it’s women who “all look the same”.
There is so much depth and music to be perceived here and quite a treat for those who see this as Weeknd’s come back from a couple years of love songs that were a desperate attempt at retaining romantic partners who seem to evade him. And it is. It is a come back, but the real question is — what are we coming back to?
Listen in to find out