★ The Weeknd ★ What You Need ★

usually on records in this pop milieu there are a good number of tracks that hit right away though, or when i spin thru the record i can see how they'll grow w/ time.

ime

yeah i know i'm just sayin

listening to "Wicked Games" and yeah this guy really does lean on the F-words in the same kind of "YEAH I SAID IT my mom didn't hear that did she?" way as Tyler Comma The Creator

i do think 'the morning' has a good hook to it but the wayne quote in the chorus feels awkward to me in a way that i remember talking about w/r/t that glitchy uk dance genre that almost-was with switch back in the mid-00s where they would sample diddy saying "i love to make you dance," where its going for a hip-hop vibe but does it in a way that feels kind of ... not like what an american artist would do? stilted.

but what are the keywords or aspects of the buzz around this that it's quickly impacting a type of music fan that by and large isn't checking for R&B?

w/o tryna sidebrag or be lame just knowing where the dudes behind this are coming from, the type of social circle(s) they move in/culture they participate in i think there's a self-reinforcing aspect to it. like if youre a young educated person in their early 20s living in a big city & youve made some music where else but the dreaded blogs are you gonna go to promote your stuff? & the tumblrs that youre gonna send your stuff to are the ones you like, or your friends write, or ppl you know think are cool.

like i realize this is tautological but theres this whole constellation of ~cultural participation~ that creates its own logic - it almost feels like qn why you might be buzzing over some local baltimore artist when theyres just as good music being made in san diego - thats not where you live yknow

& also i mean w/o going on a reality tv show or doing mall tours idk how a person wld even start tryna break into the mnstrm r&b game atp so its like - what else are you gonna do?

ugh why is 50 on "the 5 senses"? that worked perfectly at the end of "waiter"

xp ^^ this kinda plays into points upthread made about how indie needs criticism or these grassroots promotions to be relevant, whereas the R&B model has done just fine w/o it

was waiting for you to show up xp

oh yeah, there are a lot of things happening in terms of how the artist is putting their music out and how people are hearing it that are totally logical, honest, easily explained, etc. i'm just trying to say there are grey areas of that process that maybe ARE a little more insidious or imbued with deeper meaning, without sounding like a conspiracy theorist or something. xpost

idk how i got here actually i have never heard this band, what is their big song?

and of course since the majority of R&B is defined by how much radio play/mtv play it gets, or even by how much radio play it aims to get, it's easy to see why something that defines itself against that channel of promotion would stand out

...to people who dont like music that is promoted that way?

I didn't make any claims about the audience?

you can be into radio R&B and still take note of this?

well you made an assumption about it standing out to *someone* so im trying to get an idea of who you meant

people who blog, obv

another question to consider is if this mixtape hadn't gone through cool-tumblrs-of-note and instead went through some elektrik red type channel of promotion, would it still be notable

im just trying to say there are grey areas of that process that maybe ARE a little more insidious or imbued with deeper meaning

yeah, sure i was just tryna look @ it from the artists pov, more than anything. like @ some pt we are all making conscious choices abt what we pay attn to but idk maybe you overestimate how easy it is to hear ~mainstream rnb~ given certain choices. like i dont have a car or a job where i can listen to the radio or a radio at home or cable. like it was easier for me to hear a new raw moans remix than it was to hear the dawn richards mixtape. so sure im making a choice abt which tumblrs/youtubes/gchat msgs im paying attn to but all the good r&b i hear is bcuz of ilm or other web stuff too yknow??

i mean just to be unambiguous about any bias or agenda people may reasonably think i have: tbh i DO feel like there ideally SHOULD be more discussion about mainstream R&B among ANY critics/publications that consider themselves generalist or open-minded or as interested in urban music as rock or dance or w/e. and when someone like The-Dream gets a nice critical momentum going, i feel like that IS a step forward, and the next step forward might be another artist of similar mainstream profile getting more critical ink (and i won't throw out an example because then the discussion becomes about whether that example is good enough or comparable or w/e, but you know, someone who's had at least one or two hits). so when what feels like a rising level of critical interest in R&B starts getting directed at something like The Weeknd (or The xx or How To Dress Well or Yacht, you name it), i do admit that yeah, it feels a little like a step back, in terms of the critical community staying within an aesthetic comfort zone, letting R&B-influenced music meet them halfway instead of venturing out into finding more things to champion among the sea of good and bad mainstream R&B.

this is further from r&b then I was expecting from the hype/discussion. heavy on atmosphere, light on hooks. I would love more r&b meets indie, but in a way that doesn't take some of the obvious sign posts and point them downward. its soulful crooning but its sad. its techno but its sad. And I like sad music but most of this goes that way too obviously. I get the end of the party, emotions blown out vibe, but I'm not all that convinced the party was ever fun or that there was some other emotion taking place aside from desperate pleading. In short, needs more contrast. I'd like a few more tracks free of the dubstep/triphop beats. like 'loft music' the best.

I get the end of the party, emotions blown out vibe, but I'm not all that convinced the party was ever fun or that there was some other emotion taking place aside from desperate pleading.

some would say this adds to the appeal

just for the record i should say i wasn't writing about this thread -- i was listening to the record and following twitter conversation, then came here while writing to see if people were saying the same stuff! i think the issues surrounding this are just super-fascinating to me because i listen to a good amount of r&b lately, and when i listen to weeknd it feels especially clear that, like ... "this r&b is activating pleasure centers i associate with indie records" -- but it feels difficult to pinpoint specifically what sounds/choices/values are involved in doing that.

And I think big R&B listeners end up preferring that strategic misdirection and coded mannerism, leaving the Weeknd's decision to face it head on seeming somehow gauche, like coming out and saying what everyone else was cleverly implying.

tim f otm

so when what feels like a rising level of critical interest in R&B starts getting directed at something like The Weeknd (or The xx or How To Dress Well or Yacht, you name it), i do admit that yeah, it feels a little like a step back, in terms of the critical community staying within an aesthetic comfort zone, letting R&B-influenced music meet them halfway instead of venturing out into finding more things to champion among the sea of good and bad mainstream R&B.

some dude otm

And I like sad music but most of this goes that way too obviously. I get the end of the party, emotions blown out vibe, but I'm not all that convinced the party was ever fun or that there was some other emotion taking place aside from desperate pleading

bnw otm

(i'm too hungover to have thoughts of my own atm)

fyi dudes, here's a screwed version of this

http://www.thug.com/the-weeknd-house-of-balloons-chopped-screwed/

man Trick Daddy's website fell off

hahah literal lol

lol @ needing the screwed version to start paying attention to the lyrics. but yeah, lyric-wise this seems different than typical R&B - like he says 'she'll probably OD before I get a chance to show her to my mom' or something like that (paraphrasing) - acknowledgement of the nihilism of cobrasnake style coked out runway parties. like this is maybe the kind of self-destructive gloss that kanye was going for in MBDTF except it does feel kind of genuine here.

anyway maybe the weeknd will be R&B's version of OFWGKTA. just puttin it out there

anyway once I put away my R&B ears, this is nice. love the languid opulent crust to the screwed version

also the milieu is p different - the songs are set at house parties @ the homes and flats of rich ppl (or maybe just his friends), not nightclubs

you'd prob find terry richardson at one of these parties idk

it's not like all mainstream R&B is super urban and clubby -- lot of good stuff that either doesn't evoke such a specific setting or has enough of a yuppie/bougie vibe that it would work as well in a loft or posh house party. like Ryan Leslie was just brought up in the other Weeknd thread and the last Maxwell album kinda has that vibe imo.

mixtape versh of the morning is so beautiful as a thing im tryna light a cigarette but my hands are shaking too much

I agree with deej about this being weirdly unmemorable
but they sound like baby dreams (figuratively and literally) and it's their first mix so they're just getting comfy.
compare like ANY track on this album to "Kelly's 12 Play" and you instantly see how flimsy they are in comparison and how much they're biting his steez
but that don't mean they're not worth a listen or a 900 post shitstorm thread cuz they clearly are

and i DO like this a lot the morning after

also the milieu is p different - the songs are set at house parties @ the homes and flats of rich ppl (or maybe just his friends), not nightclubs

― who is john nult? (dayo), Sunday, March 27, 2011 10:51 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

even more evidence for the drake file

maxwell is on a vibe that basically no one else is at the moment (or at least no one really prominent), with the whole live band thing.

xp

also the music itself is incredibly narcotic (one of the reasons why it lends itself well to being c&s) so it would sorta make sense that the songs are about ppl that are coked out & what not

re: maxwell, i think saadiq is on the same level? haven't seen maxwell live so couldn't swear

also the cobrasnake thing is telegraphed pretty baldly in the album cover

but saadiq is deep into his whole analog retro thing, while maxwell isn't going for retro at all.

yeah, but live (or at least at the last live show i was at) saadiq drops all the retro shit and just kinda poses and thrusts hips and sings hits
tho tbf i have seen his retro schtick show as well and it's a lot less fun

sure, but i mean there's not a lot of live band r&b on record these days, or at least not a lot that i'm hearing. especially with a-list players like maxwell has.

man he really needs to hurry up and put out the next album, last one was so good

I wasn't in love with it but "Big Easy" and "Staying in Love" have made a few comps.

pretty sure some dude is talking about maxwell, in which case i agree. listened to it twice on a long drive last weekend.

so glad he is making proper use of chris dave in the studio.

yeah meant Maxwell, since the follow-up to BLACKsummers'night has supposedly be more or less in the can since before that album's release and still has no release date

even more evidence for the drake file

― wavy g. wavegarten (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, March 29, 2011 5:54 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

lol should I be paying attention to drake :/

GOD NO

not unless you are doing so with a bat aimed at every microphone he gets near