★ The Weeknd ★ What You Need ★

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?

I feel like when I first argued that the Weeknd sucked in the original Weeknd thread I was all on my alone getting the "deej...*rolls eyes*" treatment, where tf were all you guys then

At any rate of course he's a clown, that's not news!!

He's an "effective and interesting" pop star on "I can't feel my face" and "as you are" and others, IMO. One he's playing a cartoonishly douchey villain but CFMF is a better record than almost anything it's up against on the radio

I agree. Accepting that position doesn't make me tolerant of this vacuous album though.

CFMF is a good song but I can't believe dudes actually think this guy is sincere

He's an "effective and interesting" pop star on "I can't feel my face" and "as you are" and others, IMO

these songs succeed despite him or without him imo

but who knows, the trajectory of my posts on this thread suggest i will like this record by this time next week

half this album is really good including ones done by him and his old collaborators

I think this is an obviously flawed record from a flawed artist I just want to push back against the idea that it's just an easily dismissed record that is boring or uninspired, I think in all its fame-thirsty glory it's quite listenable much more often than I'd ever expected

It's so fucking weird to me reading writing about this album where everyone is like "gross misogyny tasteless creepy exploitative" etc like really where have you guys all been? It might get a passing reference in the HoB reviews. Is it just post-social media writing ? I'm not saying it's the same people per se but he's not any more creepy than he was four years ago! Folks are doing the same thing with Drake too, it's just wild to me--like everyone has suddenly developed a conscience after years of trying to convince me some of their most cringeworthy shit was actually high art. Now they're both good for a couple actual hits and everyone has discovered their moral compasses

Well in drake's case it's not actual hits but actually decent personal writing & good pop songs vs the tepid stuff of his early career, but you get the idea

There's been IMO a huge shift in the way he's talked about and it is really odd

two things about that

A) it's not the same people, but a lot of people have been saying this from the start, and

B) as a writer, it is a lot harder to place a piece criticizing an artist for being gross/tasteless/creepy/exploitative when most of the world thinks it's high art.

No ones having trouble with it right now! Look at pitchfork at this very moment

And a lot of people may have been saying it from the start but they damn sure weren't posting on ilx

I mean to get more to the point, imo there's a disingenuousness to how stuff is covered when it's perceived as new & cool vs when Mainstreamers are getting on board where there's a tipping point and suddenly a moral argument is a lot more fashionable

But maybe I'm being cynical and everyone is just that much more righteous since the advent of Twitter

I'm not complaining about ppl realizing he's skeezy---I said as much in the original weeknd thread ages ago--I just think it's odd and suspicious how that was something folks would so readily block out for years and now it's the main argument on everything written about him

it's hilarious and appropriate that The Weeknd is the first person i've ever heard sing the word "friendzone" on the radio

Friendzöne.

CFMF is funny and bad

really where have you guys all been

tbh was hoping his career was dead after kiss land, prior to this i would've focused on other artists instead of writing a tract about his emptiness

CFMF is funny and bad

― soyrev, Wednesday, 2 September 2015 10:47 (2 hours ago) Permalink

Funny and the best no 1 hit in ages

ergo, http://www.allkpop.com

xxp tbf the trajectory to pop star was much more likely; kiss land is not that far from this, or HoB, like w/ some editing there were the same ideas there it was just a bit aimless

i think it is reasonable that people could tolerate shitty aspects of the weeknd's (or anyone's) persona for a couple albums but then start to wear on it/call it out when we're a few more albums deep, doesn't seem that mysterious to me