★ The Weeknd ★ What You Need ★

(j/k!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9PuAm7d0PA

not a chris isaak cover, not that i'd be mad at that

lol i was gonna start a thread, you should fix the title btw also yes i love all these songs. loft music and wicked game esp.

o snap. i never realized it was spelled w/o an 'e' at the end

These guys remind me of Arab Strap.

this is weird, cuz i usually agree w/ jaxon about like 90% of stuff, but i dont really like this. the first track the vocals are so heavily layered & echoed that I dont really 'feel' it & it makes me all Lex-ish wishing the performance was there, because the song is **aite** but not really much more than a slow jam. but whats a slow jam where the vocals are so filtered? All i can imagine explaining that is a bunch of gross Wire/chillwave/hypnogogic style stuff about ghostly memories of a slow jam or some ish

wicked games the vocals are better but the song has so many unnecessary 'fuckings' its distracting & lyrically corny in parts

I've got your performance right here.

jk

i guess the thing that i like is that it is sorta chillwavy whatevsy. it kinda reminds me of all that post dubstep r'n'b influenced stuff i'm really into but know nothing about like burial or james blake or deadboy remixes or burial or whatever (where should i look to get more of this stuff btw?), but it's more of an actual r'n'b song than those. my MO has always been chocolate in my peanut butter*. foreign takes on rock music, psychedelic country, disco jazz, synthy african music etc. i guess i really like this because it's not straight up r'n'b.

* does this make me corny indie fuxor btw?

yah this grafts together two things i really like: chillwave and cute-boy-r&b. usually this kindof yoking together of things i like pisses me off and i tend to be a bit like this is a watered down versh of 2 things i like but in this case i love it.

new stuff here; http://soundcloud.com/theweekndxo

jaxon what you said makes sense, i guess to me it just seems too close to actual R&B, not weird enough, to seem partic. novel. Burial im not a huge fan of but it at least has a beat style that exists outside of current R&B, this just sounds like an anonymous slow jam to me but w/ a plainer vocal performance

lol @ 'actual R&B' you are so weird

holy shit, thanks for that soundcloud link.

also, apparently i like burial so much i mentioned him twice

lol @ 'actual R&B' you are so weird

― nu rave electro banger coked out art school college party (Lamp), Monday, March 21, 2011 4:57 PM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

not sure whats weird abt this

version of "The Morning" doesnt have the slo-mo vocal effect abused by salem

i liked the old version but i like this version too

"the morning" is pretty fucking amazing tho

this whole thing is weird as hell tho

i really am interested to find about who this guy is/what he's into/who he's affiliated with etc

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

I liked it, cad otm here and in Super Bowl thread

i didn't love the performance... very weird to see a super bowl halftime show where the singer is jammed off to one side on a static stage like he's headlining a festival. i found it pretty boring for that reason... once he finally got onto the field it was fine, nothing that special. seemed like he tried to do something cool as opposed to something that was fun. i've seen better from him on TV tbh

didn’t like it either tbh, good voice ruined by a pretty bad sound mix, he can’t dance and has no stage presence or charisma to speak off, so not a good idea to do a solo show like this.

speak of*

I didn’t really know his music before, I recognized the big hit which I really liked and has been stuck in my head all day. So mission accomplished over here I guess

I'm ten years late on house of baloons. I love this album. wtf was I listening to in 2011? I don't know.

Was def into the mixtapes at the time. It’s some weird type of nostalgic hearing them now though

Rereading the posts from the start of this thread 10 years ago, it’s funny to see how so many people thought the weeknd was a group at first. Who would’ve thought he’d be headlining the Super Bowl half time show 10 years later!

new one is just a repeat of the last except a bit worse. same well-crafted retro production but the songs aren't too convincing overall & it doesn't have the same highlights either.

i hope Robert Beatty made a bunch of dough for this album cover

oh wait, is it the old man pic? i thought it was this: https://www.target.com/p/the-weeknd-dawn-fm-target-exclusive-cd/-/A-85668841

maybe it's both. idk...

old man pic is the main cover, that's a target exclusive cover

lol at him getting mike love's son & bruce johnston to do some totally inconsequential beach boys oohs on a track that does not resemble the beach boys at all

somehow all of this new weeknd stuff has made me get back to this 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ8yZmgKIHU

the best stuff on after hours were where he was least interested in the 80s thing and instead moved towards 90s garage rhythms so of course there's none of that here

I'm not hearing what's supposed to sound "80s" about this album.

i like that he's pushing super hard in this direction & leaving the dirtbag R&B thing behind, i just wish the production and songwriting were better. i like plenty of max martin stuff but purposefully placing him in the same context as quincy jones doesn't really do max many favors as a producer, honestly. you can't really hear any instruments breathe on this, it's all very monolithic and smushed together. sign of the times, of course, but i want to love a project like this and it leaves me a bit cold. it feels telling to me that "i feel it coming" is still his best disco-y type song & it came from daft punk in the wake of them meticulously recreating 70s studio musicianship. these weeknd records really need some of that touch. in general i still think starboy has his best songs, tho after hours is prob better front to back as an album. gonna keep trying w/ this one tho

OPN has more production credit on this than Martin, though both are involved on nearly every track. Haven't heard it yet, but if it's an album's worth of No Nightmares that's not a bad thing at all.

Shame about the cover though

I should say production and writing credit. Lopatin is listed as a writer for all but two tracks

I've listened to it twice and I don't remember any of the songs yet.

‘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