The new pop year is off to a good start with The Weeknd and their fifth album, Dawn FM, the most successful of his discography – if we disregard his famous first three mixtapes who, more than ten years ago, had crystallized the dark R&B of the Torontonian, a sound from which he had unfortunately moved away in recent years, seduced as he was by the sirens of dance pop. Better than on After Hours (2020), the musician achieves on his new album the balance between the tortured neo-R & B of the early years and the futuristic disco to which Daft Punk had initiated him in 2016 on the album Starboy.
New record, new concept, new costumes: no more bloody bandages hiding his face during the cycle After Hours, here is now The Weeknd “aged”, withered, stunted, the graying beard on the cover of the album. As if he had reached the twilight of his life, as if he had only a short time left – incidentally, a recurring theme for the artist who already evoked this idea in his mega-success. Blinding Lights.
If, paradoxically, it is rather at dawn that he refers in the title of this album suggesting an imaginary radio station, the main theme of the album is no longer in doubt: it is about the regrets that we accumulate, from the retrospective look that the artist wears when he feels the end coming. Actor Jim Carrey, omniscient narrator of the album, sums up its spirit in this way, on Out of time : ” Before you’re completely engulfed in the blissful embrace of that little light you see in the distance / Soon you’ll be healed, forgiven, and refreshed / Free from all trauma, pain, guilt, and shame / You may even forget your own name “.
A little creepy? Obviously, it’s The Weeknd. Even his most optimistic refrains conceal a vague to the soul, pop being the vector through which the Torontonian opens up about his conflicting romantic relationships, his problems of consumption (in any case, those he displays in his texts, fictitious or not) and, concerning this album precisely, the consequences of a depression that he says he experienced when starting the creation of Dawn FM.
Which is not for all that depressing, far from it: twelve songs (and four interludes), not a bad one, most of them catchy as were its recent successes. On a futuristic disco rhythm Giorgio Moroder style, the long version of Take my Breath is devilishly more effective than the ” single »Unveiled last summer. The funk boogie Sacrifice which follows has the potential of a hit summer. At the end of the album, we discover the unstoppable chorus of Less than zero, more new wave than R&B, perfect pop song in the colors of the great hits of A-Ha or Duran Duran.
After an explosive and festive first third, the album changes tempo and sees Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd) return to his R&B roots: after the boogie ballad Out of time, the most sensual Here We Go… Again, with a verse rapped by Tyler, The Creator and backing vocals … by Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys! All as sweet, Is There Someone Else? and Starry eyes (the most tender vocal performance on the album) coaxes the listener.
So on Dawn FM, The Weeknd does not innovate as much as it refines an already avoided proposition, in his work or that of others. Musically, it’s not a revolution, but the sum of the pop experiments carried out in recent years. Moroder and Michael Jackson are mentioned there again, period Thriller – up to inviting director Quincy Jones to recount his personal trauma with women on A Tale by Quincy ! Even his concept of a fictional 1980s radio station had been (brilliantly) tackled by his precious collaborator Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) on his most recent album, Magic Oneohtrix Point Never (2020).
Lopatin and Tesfaye met during the production of the feature film Uncut Gems, directed by the Safdie brothers (one of them made a flash appearance on Dawn FM). The Torontonian invited the avant-garde American composer to collaborate on two songs byAfter Hours ; on Dawn FM, he acts as co-director, and his touch, meticulous, sophisticated, singular (although less experimental than on his solo work) magnifies each of the productions of the album to which his name is associated, that is to say thirteen d ‘between them. Other famous goldsmiths of groove also collaborate in the success of the album, including the composer of Quebec origin Jason Quenneville (alias DaHeala) and the Swedes Max Martin, Oscar Holter and Swedish House Mafia.
Designed as a long mix uninterrupted – if not by strange commercials starring Jim Carrey -, Dawn FM listened to tirelessly. Tesfaye suggested in an interview that this album could be his last under the stage name The Weeknd; if so, he will end the adventure on a very high note.