The Weeknd, Thursday
Reviewed by: Chris Bosman
I don’t know if I quite believed Abel Tesfaye when he announced earlier this year that his excellent, revelatory House of Balloons mix tape under his the Weeknd moniker would be followed by not one but two other full-length mix tapes by the end of the year. The goal was ambitious, especially if the records were going to have the same level of detail, the same obvious care, the same creeping sexuality, the same quality. That kind of production is hard to pull off for the most seasoned of artists, to say nothing of a young twenty-something Drake protege.
But last week, Thursday dropped with an announcement on the Weeknd’s Twitter, and was promptly swallowed up by the Internet. The biggest risk of the multiple releases within a yearly time frame was always going to be the comparisons. Last year, James Blake circumnavigated those issues firstly by limiting the lengths of those releases and most importantly by drastically changing the focus of each. Tesfaye isn’t exactly a limited musician, but he’s not experimenting with the same palette as Blake, meaning that his releases will necessarily invite more apples-to-apples comparisons. So, let’s ask the obvious question: How does Thursday sound in comparison to House of Balloons?
Well, here’s the simple answer: It’s not quite as good. And here’s the more in-depth answer: It’s less catchy, but grittier. It’s less sex, but more fucking. It has less earworms, but explores more depth. It doesn’t have any instant classics, but is more even. It’s less mainstream-ready, but is more suited for multiple listens. It’s not as smooth, but its roughness actually enhances it. No, it’s not quite as good, but that still means it’s pretty damn good.
House of Balloons had the element of surprise, which means such surprise should elude Thursday, but Tesfaye has been shrewd with his releases. The quality of Thursday suggests that he’s had plenty of these songs knocking around in his head for awhile and that he knew which ones were best suited for each other. Where House of Balloons was full of sexually-charged tension, the lead up to a passionate affair, Thursday is all fallout, a brutal counterpart that acknowledges something often ignored in R&B: the consequences of one’s actions. The result of which is that Thursday sounds just as fresh as House of Ballons, if not even more singular.
Tesfaye’s voice has lost none of its power, and Thursday showcases it in new and engaging ways. The way the primary vocals are mixed in these tracks often paint Tesfaye as a Master of Ceremonies over his own songs, rising above the fray of his sympathetic street narratives, even despite the first-person nature of his storytelling. It’s a trick that’s been employed by other artists of the sexgaze movement– Balam Acab, How to Dress Well, et. al– but usually to obfuscate the obvious emotion, instead of highlighting it like on Thursday.
The melodies are less obvious here than they were on House of Balloons, but the textures are richer and create a different atmosphere around the record. “Life of the Party”’s deliberate guitars and angry stomps play like a slow-mo version of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s “Hell of a Life,” the raindrop finger-picked acoustic guitar that drives “Rolling Stone” sounds less like an aimless stab at a new sounds– like it did when it was first released– and more like a heartbreaking moment of realization between the druggy hardships of the two-part “The Birds” suite and “Gone.” And when fellow Canadian sensation Drake shows up at the end of “The Zone”, not only does Aubrey Graham drop one of his finest verses, but he sounds straight dominant in the track’s cavernous spaces. While Tesfaye has sacrificed some immediacy, he’s made up for it by opening up his playing field.
While Thursday is not the same sort of “Holy shit!” moment as House of Balloons was, what it does in replacement of that is establish Tesfaye as more than a passing trend. If the man can complete the trifecta later this year with Echoes of Silence, he’ll be a legitimate sensation, as the way he’s deconstructed traditional R&B and combined it with his deadly vocal talents are straight on the next level. On “The Birds Part 1″, Tesfaye sings “Don’t make me make you fall in love with a nigga like me.” Too late, sir.