★ The Weeknd ★ What You Need ★

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

best new music yall

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/mar/29/the-weeknd-rnb

http://www.thirteen.org/riffcity/love-and-other-drugs-the-weeknds-altered-state-rb/

lex offtm

The group's penchant for druggy atmospherics is mirrored in their lyrical content, which is overtly sexual, narcotics-focused, and occasionally downright frightening. Debauchery is obviously nothing new in R&B, but this takes it a step further-- the drugs are harder, the come-ons feel predatory and lecherous, and the general feeling is self-hating rather than celebratory.

While Drake himself dabbles in longing when he’s not crooning about his swag, whether by success or general nice-guy demeanor, he could never sound quite as convincingly on the verge of a delicate breakdown as this dude. The music is almost nihilistic in its total committal to feeling good. Like The Weeknd’s appeals for love, sex, drugs, are simply distractions before the end of the world.

these two quotes capture the appeal for me, and it's why this mixtape takes me to an emotional space that other R&B doesn't. sure, by itself the production is nothing new, but combined with the detached, glassy-eyed dead-inside lyrics & the quavering delivery, it becomes something more. it doesn't really feel like R&B so much as R&B appropriated for something else. like, it works because there's a constant tension between his voice and the lyrical content - and those f-bombs and n-words, they def stand out, but it's because you feel like it's false bravado, that somehow he's found himself at this party of the young and rich and needs to convince himself that he too can belong there, can hang.

I never really listened to trip-hop and I have a few portishead albums but I don't listen to them too much so idk

Like The Weeknd’s appeals for love, sex, drugs, are simply distractions before the end of the world.

the idea that this is something unique to this group is wild to me though. tons of R&B is about this either directly or indirectly

this is reiterating tim's post but it's just done so obviously it reminds me of when you're a teenager & you drink for the first time & its like a Big Deal or something. so you talk about it a lot. Dudes, we should try to get some beers! or weed it works with that too. its just sort of naively obvious w/ this stuff

I feel like it's the bleak nihilism of it all that appeals. there probably is a ton of R&B out there that deals with this (suggestions?) but maybe not as directly? I feel like there's a immolation of ego here, or rather an imbrication of self with surrounding that's lacking from other stuff, where usually there's at least hope for redemption of the singer.

Least convincing / most lol-worthy aspect of The Weeknd's quick rise to Internet fame

hey ilxor, funny thread title, thanks for contributing, glad you stopped by

thanking u for display name

feel like you should indicate you made an edit you asshole

^^ i made an edit

honestly i would've used the whole thing but it was 2 characters too long :(

okay someone should have told me that "Happy House" was sampled on one of these tracks and I would have been way less reserved in my like of this

this should help: one of the B-sides is a cover of INXS's "What You Need"

tombreihan Tom Breihan
British people, man. What the fuck. http://bit.ly/hNUJ7U
55 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

Lex, I have read your piece in the Guardian with great interest. One thing that sticks out for me - having read this thread, liking The Weeknd and not being an overall RnB afficionado - is that you approach The Weeknd from almost a purist's notion of what RnB is/should be.

"the further away it gets from its formalist roots, the more praise is lavished on it."

This may be true in Fennessey's case, or others', because they approach the Weeknd from their 'indie-realm'. The diametrical opposite though could be said about your point of view: "the closer it gets to its formalist roots, the more praise is lavished on it". The point of your piece seems to be that there is way purer (and better) RnB around, and that - the headline says it all - "Most RnB fans have better things to listen to". Of which you give a multitude of examples after that.

I understand taking a - in your view - bad example of RnB, works quite well to write about what you think RnB is/should be. But you don't go into what, if anything, the Weeknd signifies. You only say it's not that good, not in terms of songcraft, in emotion etc. You don't trace it back to any roots, or connect it to anything. Basically you merely state that you don't know what the fuss is all about.

Which is fair enough I suppose, but as embarrassing as Fennessey's statement is, you can't deny that the Weeknd (and some acts before them, like HTDW) are doing something new/different with RnB. Even if you don't like it, or perceive it - quite lazily in my opinion - as "The addition of vaguely lo-fi chillwave textures are a lazy way of connoting darkness" (ugh). It would be at least worth it to investigate.

The Weeknd might increase my fondness for RnB a little bit more. Just like HTDW did. I for one do not care one iota about if there is "nothing shocking" about the Weeknd. There's enough "nothing shocking" music out there that I love. I get The Weeknd and enjoy the 'dirtiness' of it. The edge it has to it (which is not LOL-lofi-chillwave *at all* to me) made it easier for me to get in there. Telling me there's a whole slew of artists that make better RnB will not change that. But then again, as noted from the headline, you did not write this piece for me or people like me, but for what you perceive to be "most RnB fans".

this whole thing is just that standard internet meme of claiming that anyone who likes "thing y" does so because they think it's "genre x", and then insisting this is the case because you are so annoyed at the fools who think "stupid point z". then searching the net far and wide for people to support this awful view you hate.

it's like....look out the window, there's a world outside music criticism.

"The disproportionate attention accorded to the Weeknd is reflective of an attitude towards R&B that just won't seem to die: the further away it gets from its formalist roots, the more praise is lavished on it."

^ agree w/ lex here -- but to be fair, doesn't "the further away it gets from its formalist roots, the more praise is lavished on it" apply to pretty much every "traditional"/older genre that indie critics cover? e.g., rock, metal, folk, etc. etc.

I'd probably like this group's music more if I knew nothing about the sub-Last-Night's-Party tawdry image they were pushing.

Then again "debauchery into shattered emptiness" is not really where I go for kicks these days, anyway.