Everything feels tighter, brighter and more comfortable than past albums – but oddly also more drawn out. There are songs about partying, but clearly the drugs have worn off.
It revels less in the tempo changes and anti-pop digressions that have marked Tesfaye’s work right up to Beauty.
THE WEEKND STARBOY PLUS
Starboy is expertly sequenced and subtly blends modern hip-hop rhythms and attitude with 70s/80s pop aesthetics – plus the odd 90s R&B riff – into tight pop songs. A dusty guitar riff jerks Starboy back to earth on Sidewalks, a boastful come-up track that includes intense Kendrick verbiage and some impressive vocal acrobatics from Tesfaye at the end. They deliver solid hooks, but are ultimately more generic than gratifying. Singer Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, known professionally as The Weeknd, performs on stage during 'The. The Weeknd performs during his 'Starboy World Tour' at Golden 1 Center on Octoin Sacramento, California. Just when the 80s cribbing seems like overkill, along comes True Colors, an R&B slow burner that shares only its title with Cyndi Lauper’s signature song.īlunt-force pop singles include the Max Martin-produced Rockin, with its wobbly club beat and falsetto chorus, and the shouty banger False Alarm. The Weeknd performs during Starboy: Legend of the Fall 2017 World Tour at Spark Arena on Novemin Auckland, New Zealand. The song Starboy is an earworm that doesn’t quite wow at the level of the Weeknd or Daft Punk’s best, but it effectively sets up the album’s retro themes, which play out not only in production choices but in lyrics and melodies.Īiry pop anthem Secrets sounds like something from Fleetwood Mac’s Tango In The Night sessions and interpolates both Tears for Fears’ Pale Shelter and the Romantics’ Talking In Your Sleep. The Weeknd - Starboy (Letras y canción para escuchar) - You talking money, need a hearing aid / You talking bout me, I don’t see a shade / Switch up my style, I take any lane / I switch up my cup, I kill any pain / / Look what youve done / I’m a motherfuckin starboy.
Last year’s Beauty Behind The Madness made Tesfaye a bona fide superstar, and Starboy opens with a cocky acknowledgement of this fact on the Daft Punk-produced title track: “I’m a motherfuckin’ star, boy.” The reclusive French duo’s presence on the opening and closing tracks, along with the long list of producers and other A-list guests (including Lana Del Rey and Kendrick Lamar), further back up the claim. The atmosphere of nocturnal menace and hip-hop bravado so integral to his sound are present, but smoothed over by bright, striving melodies that temper the nihilistic tendencies with the upbeat/melancholy dichotomy that has served mainstream pop so well since ABBA. A gleaming neon retro-futuristic streak has run through the Toronto pop star’s music since 2013’s Kiss Land, and Abel Tesfaye brings that approach to the fore on Starboy, his most sonically cohesive album since the Trilogy era. It’s easy to imagine a mood board on the studio wall listing various 80s influences for the Weeknd’s third studio album: the Stranger Things soundtrack, Tron, Tears for Fears.
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