★ The Weeknd ★ What You Need ★

i hear drake, trey songz, the-dream & dirty money as much as i hear hypnagogic pop

the thing i'm interested in is why the music codes mainstream r&b but the surface aesthetics & target audience are pure indie rock

so "what you need" samples "rock the boat" & "the party & the after party" samples beach house

when i heard that beach house i knew i knew it but it felt like some awesome classic rock radio wild card like wicked game or tusk or something and then i was like oh its beach house and maybe i like beach house now maybe

Your name looks weird.

anyone catch "Coming Down" before the download limit was reached? and what track number are it, Wicked Games & What You Need?

coming down is 7, wicked games is 5, what you need is 2

apparently co-signed by drake already
http://rapfix.mtv.com/2011/03/21/say-hello-to-the-weeknd-drake-co-signs/

shocking, that

nm. found an alternative dl

xpost. ha. ya

Look out for an abundance of emoness!

i guess i really like this because it's not straight up r'n'b.

* does this make me corny indie fuxor btw?

...yes?

i really hate this, like really really can't stand, and please can pitchfork types "doing" r&b just end already? it's gross

this guy isn't a pitchfork type tho, which is why it's interesting & how to dress well really isn't

or "these guys" or w/e

everything about the vocals makes me cringe (ughhh the OTT swearing just feels so contrived), there's like no emotion in it at all, and the music is generic chillwave? witch house is more interesting than this

i think deej's criticism that the songwriting isn't strong enough rings true at times but i think you're really evaluating the point of the project & other things about it

er, misevaluating

what is the "point" of this project then

like, the guy is a better singer than the-dream for one. also the music isn't generic chillwave in the slightest, at least the chillwave i'm aware of. it definitely is chill and at times can be chillwave-y, but it quite obviously expands on that. most of the time it sounds like a less pop-indebted version of the drake/40 sound (like, you could the beat for "fall for your type" on this album and you would hardly be able to tell)

what is the "point" of this project then

― lex pretend, Tuesday, March 22, 2011 4:31 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

honestly i'm not exactly sure, which is part of what i find interesting about them. but i think it's quite clear that they're going for something different than how to dress well, who pretty much seemed to be asking "what if i made r&b as indie as possible, also if i recorded my album inside a drain pipe?". weeknd to me seems like pretty straight ahead contemporary r&b, albeit someone w/ an interest in some types of indie music. i mean the guy sings about alize and making it rain and crap. it's more trey songz than pitchfork tbh.

i mean the guy sings about alize and making it rain and crap

this really comes across as so gimmicky though - it seems really forced. i'm not going to second-guess his motivation or background but it totally sounds like co-opting signifiers from the outside in the most boring way.

he's not even as good a singer as terius and certainly doesn't possess the wit or the gift for melody that makes terius' limitations as a vocalist easy to ignore.

and a huge #smh to most of the people bigging this guy up who never took the slightest bit of interest in trey songz - that right there is the warning sign

They mostly sound like a bad impression of a load of music I quite like. They dont seem to be able to program a beat that doesn't sound clunky and annoying either. What You Need is the best of a bad bunch so far. Maybe they'll come with more of that and refine their sound a load and grow into it but I dunno... It all seems early days for these dudes, right now it sounds like they're still learning and hopping on a load of trends from the shitty dubstep impressions in some of the beats to shity JJ/chillwave impressions in a load of the music to R&B in the vocals... They sound like they're playing dress up right now.

this guy isn't a pitchfork type tho, which is why it's interesting & how to dress well really isn't

― blingee cummings (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, March 22, 2011 8:14 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

thing is, i like it sometimes when pfork guys try to do that stuff. they dont get an automatic pass in either direction. what matters imo is songwriting & this project has its moments --'the morning' is p great -- but some big misses too. that 'rock the boat' sampling one is generic as hell & the vocal effect is distancing. & the lyrics in the 2nd one, where he keeps saying 'motherfucker,' are really off putting & gimmicky. im kind of w/ lex here in that if you like this stuff, you should love the album tracks ("unfortunate" etc) on the last trey songz

i dont hear the 'indie'-ness of this at all tho -- sounds like R&B not always done very well

nabisco's last column is all abt this kind of thing btw

Everybody loves Trey Songz.

stoked lex doesn't like this

ha. but yeah, what are you guys hearing that is weird or interesting abt this? i mean, assuming you dont have probs w/ the songwriting i just dont get whats particularly out there abt it

I actually haven't herd the whole album yet. Planning on listening later today, but I'm basing all my fanboyism on 'what you need'. I'll check out Trey songz and would like any other recs like this.

the album as a whole does have some lapses in songwriting and definitely gets over on mood in places, but if you dig the general sound it's a pretty good album

yeah im basing this off the three songs ive heard so i need to hear the full record

my favourite r&b albums of 2011 so far are the kandi and marsha ambrosius, and the diddy/dirty money and dawn richard mixtapes

kinda loving this. does read a lot like htdw w/ "better" singing

this music is designed for sex+weed

this thread is gonna turn me into the lex

smoke weed listen to sade imo

sade makes me think of middle aged ladies

comment on karagarga:

The-Dream's infatuation with girls has made him the biggest pimp on earth. The Weeknd's infatuation with girls has made him painfully lonely, sorrowful and filled with heartache. Everybody else sits somewhere in between.

karablabla

The Weeknd's infatuation with girls has made him painfully lonely, sorrowful and filled with heartache

fkn inadequate indie losers

sade makes me think of middle aged ladies

― gr8080, Tuesday, March 22, 2011 7:13 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

with which u are v familiar obv

OK, this/these IS/ARE the person/people with the song containing "watch me knock your boots off." ("Would you like some making fuck/BERSERKER.")

What I've heard sounds shriveled and (like Lex said) forced.

ha glad im not alone w/ lex on this one no offense lex

kmt

lol you guys like jamie woon and harsh on this smh

havent heard the lp yet but 'night air' >>>>

grady just listen to R&B

havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet havent heard the lp yet

xpost. ^ that's what's so wrong about your opinions. fuck all this "just listen to the real thing". it might not be the best songwriting (dunno yet), he def overuses the word 'fuck', but from what i've heard, he/they create a really great mood.

‘how do i make you love me’ is so sick

‘how do i make you love me’ is so sick

― flopson,

Agreed. The rest of the album is the usual meh.

Gasoline through Sacrifice is a really solid run imo. The rest hasn’t really stuck with me so far. Admittedly I didn’t spend time with the last album so I don’t have the comparison point.

yeah i like most of the album quite a lot, especially the “bangers”. one of my most listened to mixes last year was lopatin’s bbc essential mix which was all italo electro minimal synth and techno. at the time i thought it was a bit of a curveball for him but it makes sense that he was working on this album at the time

it’s a ymmv but i like this sound more than ‘get lucky’ era daft punk

I kinda wish he just made a wall-to-wall bangers album in the style of those songs, like a dance mix. I don't understand the point of throwing in that Quincy bit at all and it the album loses so much steam from there.

At its best ("Don't Break My Heart," a couple others) he suggests a squishier late '80s freestyle sound.

It's been underwhelming to me too - I was expecting something great based on some raves elsewhere. I tried revisiting some cuts via YouTube and it felt like the videos had more to offer than the music playing underneath.

Production is amazing in several of these, but I agree that it feels like it’s missing something. It gets to a point where it feels tiresome to listen to pastiche after pastiche. If the intent was to make this album sound like purgatory it succeeds at it.

Particularly like “gasoline” in spite of the awkward monster mash vocals in the verse.

Yeah Gasoline is a standout for me.

i'm liking this the more i listen to it. enjoying how it starts hard and clubby and unfurls into lush golden hour type tracks the more it plays out. something about it is still leaving me cold tho, can't quite put my finger on it. it's his most thematically concise album (at least of recent vintage) but i don't think it has the highs of his last few records. something like "rockin" off starboy is still >>>> to me. it's nice to play but i'm having trouble remembering individual tracks esp separating the songwriting from the production. "gasoline" is pretty awesome tho

He's sooooo addicted to "Baby Be Mine" as influence and sonic signifier.

i also really wish the interludes didn't exist. some albums i don't mind them, this one it makes me harder to remember how the album flows

the Quincy Jones grosses me out! Is he suggesting he's as crazy as Q's mama? A master like Q?

For whatever reason, the interludes don't feel all that intrusive to me. It helps that two of them are confined to the intro and outro, but even the others mostly feel like (appropriately) moody pauses in what is an otherwise sonically uniform record.

i liked this album (listened on a night drive, which seems ideal), not sure which song is my favorite but i know that the one with tyler is my least favorite

well, Tyler's declarative sentences blow away Tesfaye's repulsive fluttered moues.

yeah i mean the main reason i dislike that one in particular is that abel goes back to that played-out single-note melodic style i got sick of around the time of “low life”

album is alright, seems kind of slight which the last one did as well. it's not very memorable but listening to it doesn't make me angry either.

lol why did they get him to do a song for avatar 2 that's such a weird combo

not finished listening to this long ass album yet, but there's definitely a few jams here, especially "Open Hearts"

The length really works against this album. He's said this is his last release as the Weeknd and I'm guessing he crammed everything he had left as a result. Besides "Open Hearts" there's a really nice run from "I Can't Wait to Get There" to "Take Me Back to LA" and a few other solid tracks scattered throughout. The track with Lana is boring until she comes in in the final minute. Would have been so much better as like a 40-minute album, it's probably weaker than Dawn FM