★ The Weeknd ★ What You Need ★

"As you are" and "tell my friends" are fire imho and better than "in the night"

has he really transcended his cult? i thought (and the album agrees) that it had just reached critical mass, plus a little artificial kick

― r|t|c, Sunday, August 23, 2015 1:10 PM (55 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permali

I mean...he was literally incapable of crafting a hit until this year

ha u of all people on earth with the hits line

i don't think there was a cult as such basically, he was popular as fuck v quickly m/l

the thing that always bugged me about him was that he was clearly incapable of writing hit records and all these ppl were riding for him as some kind of answer to a "weak state of r&b" that included certified g's like James Fauntleroy

was there honestly a "thank god for the weeknd bc modern rnb is weak" response when this dude blew up or is that just an imagined white hipster critic strawman? not a dig on you d40, tbh I didn't pay much attention to the weeknd when those first mix tapes and all the hype dropped so I don't really know, and it doesn't seem to be the case anymore at least?

was there honestly a "thank god for the weeknd bc modern rnb is weak" response when this dude blew up or is that just an imagined white hipster critic strawman?

― marcos, Sunday, August 23, 2015 10:50 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

holy fuck yes

I mean it's literally written into the ny times article that's set the table for all of these narratives

It's also in some sense true in that: the industry totally bottomed out around that time, everyone's shit was leaking like a seive, even r Kelly couldn't get an album out. So from the stance of, like, marketing, he was stepping into a void for r&b. Just not a musical one

feels like that void is a jeremih album, what a fucking shame that dude can't seem to get his ducks in a row

the weeknd's self-release strategy allowed him to saunter into a void that was created by major labels freaking out over the possibility of taking chances for the most part (ALL I WANT IS YOU being an exception here)

haven't listened to the leak yet, does he still sound like he'd be a depressingly terrible lay

oh absolutely

feels like that void is a jeremih album, what a fucking shame that dude can't seem to get his ducks in a row

― Meta Forksclove-Liebeskind (forksclovetofu), Sunday, August 23, 2015 11:37 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dude had just released an album at that time tho

jeremih released an album just now? what?

a few months before House of Balloons

Yeah at that time there would have been nothing especially intriguing about a Jeremih release, especially one as ehh as All About You. He came late to the party with his statement piece (Late Nights).

Frank Ocean put up Nostalgia Ultra on his tumblr out of frustration with Def Jam a month before HoB and rode the Odd Future wave and the sheer quality of the thing (Still a few cut above Channel Orange to me)

Jhene Aiko put out her first tape on datpiff same month as HoB and generated buzz off her relative obscurity and understated mystique vs the profile of her features and interesting production.

Those two plus The Weeknd (who also had that heavy Drake cosign) were the arguably the progenitors (and biggest beneficiaries) of the initial wave that saw music bloggers chucking whatever shit that sounded anyhow different at a wall and declaring it the new wave (lots of waves in 2011 iirc) and writing gushing pieces about the death and subsequent revival of R&B courtesy of hipster beer.

Miguel was essentially able to latch onto that self-released new school cred via the Art Dealer Chic tapes. Not sure Kaleidoscope Dream generates the same buzz without that.

Tsrobodo otm.

Acquainted is seriously creepy. It gives off child molester vibes. Ugh.

oh i see what you're getting at now. obvs i mean i wish jeremih had an album out NOW when the cultural landscape is prepared to embrace it rather than having NYT thought pieces about this nudnik.

until one minute ago when i was like "i should check out this new weeknd stuff" i genuinely though "i can't feel my face" was a bruno mars song

bruno mors janua vitae

FWIW i love the song... been loving it all summer

I haven't fucked with the record yet, but it seems that, as a pure singer, he's unique in context of contemporary african-american music— or in his case, north american of african descent. It's been widely noted (maybe upthread?) that he is of very recent ethiopian descent, which is key to the scales and kind of vibrato that he uses, which would not typically be in the arsenal of, say, Jeremih (i dig the fukk out of "planes" and I have heard it every day oozing out of cars in BK for the past three months) and others who very likely learned to sing in black church in the U.S. I immediately was struck at how different he was when I heard "wicked games."

Don't really get why musically savvy people would be bothered by his creepy dark prince persona. you don't know him and you probably don't know anyone who he fucked and then discarded. His shit illuminates a regrettable but authentic, hugely common experience where men treat women abominably, and how he conveys that is also unique and, fuck, pretty compelling. Or does he not do that anymore on the new sellout record?

it's either unique or hugely common, it can't be both

K., I have great respect for you, so I do not wish to be smugly mansplain-y when I say it is more than clear above that I am saying that his treatment of hugely common experiences is in my view unique. Ymmv, obv.

I don't disrespect you that I know of (I don't know who you are and until 1 hour ago I assumed you were actually someone named Veronica Moser) but even if his (uggggghhhh) take was unique it would have lost its uniqueness somewhere midway through house of balloons

i want to know what rtc thinks when he finally hears it

imo, good album, will enjoy its presence in the culture, a positive step for a previously unredeemable artist, probably not going to last for me at the end of the year

i am digging "tell your friends" lol

"often" same old weeknd, yea as mentioned above for better or worse

I guess I've waited all my life for a sweet male voice to sing ""I think these hoes deserve another fixing."

lol

"the hills" & "acquainted also same old weeknd, i am guessing 70% of this is going to be same old weeknd?

its not about his mentality then vs. now or some 'maturation' or 'growth' its just 100% about writing songs that don't meander & pointlessly revel in atmosphere at the sake of musicality

it's all 'old weeknd' in the sense that his POV is pretty much the same throughout

actually if anything, "acquainted" is the closest to a new direction for him in terms of his approach to these subjects

it is a pretty exhausting album, basically all weeknd albums are imo, i enjoy a track here or there and even HoB which i generally like i can still only listen to a few tracks at a time

xp how so?

he fell in love!

yawn

xp with like, percocet?

you sure as fuck couldnt tell from beauty behind the madness imo other than on "cant feel my face" and "angel," generally seems to be the same "im a sad druggy boy but sex is so good but women as human beings are so scary but sex is so good" attitude idk

i basically think his approach to pop is as meandering as his atmospheric garbage

much as i insist on hating this record "acquainted" got its hooks in me on this relisten

xp with like, percocet?

you sure as fuck couldnt tell from beauty behind the madness imo other than on "cant feel my face" and "angel," generally seems to be the same "im a sad druggy boy but sex is so good but women as human beings are so scary but sex is so good" attitude idk

― slothroprhymes, Tuesday, September 1, 2015 12:28 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no, he says he fell for a girl, usually he's just using them....i'm not saying it's some radical departure though, in fact that's my whole point. he's doubled down on the whole schtick but at least this time around songwriting feels like a more pertinent factor for him

rare brad/deej disagreement here

i mean i guess i just disagree that he managed the shift that you and the narrative want to credit him with

the good parts of this record feel like accidents

for instance the two songs i like as much as "can't feel my face" ("acquainted" and "as you are") are marred by shitty codas

Acquainted really makes me want to kick him in the nuts. You're glad you're acquainted? Really? Not good enough!

some people have expressed gentle enthusiasm about the ldr collab and i would like to ask: why

this was samey enough that i started tuning it out but the diane warren-y closer is good/lolzy

drag triplet piano turnarounds :D

i mean i guess i just disagree that he managed the shift that you and the narrative want to credit him with

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Tuesday, 1 September 2015 18:45 (3 hours ago) Permalink

Useless codas still come after actual songs with catchy choruses, radio can just fade them right out

You don't dig the Kanye record?

not really. I mean it's kinda funny but the weeknd's voice against kanye's production is kind of a nightmare of treble

also "radio can fade them out" if they become singles which they might not in which case they'd remain interminable album tracks

idek what we're disagreeing about. the weeknd will totally be a pop star just not an effective or interesting one imo. he wouldn't be the first. new album is a mess conducted by an avatar who's both uninvolving and reprehensible (and tbh the "I'm actually falling in love" touches make it much worse) just like all his other albums, there's just traces of legitimate craft telegraphed in by cowriters

wait, people are seriously taking "acquainted" at face value?????

there are people in the world who can hear "baby, you're no good, think I fell for you, nobody's got me feeling this way, you probably think I'm lying, put some more inside your cup and drink till you numb the pain" and not have their bullshit detector go supernova?