This may have been a bittersweet goodbye to The Weeknd, but at least it was the perfect final bow.
The Weeknd (Abel Makkonen Tesfaye) released his last album, “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” on Jan. 31 to finish out his trilogy installment with his past two albums, “After Hours” and “Dawn FM.” The album consists of 22 songs with eight other featured artists like Lana Del Ray and Travis Scott and is his final album under the famous name of “The Weeknd.” Additionally, a psychological thriller produced by The Weeknd, which is also called “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” is based on his latest album and will be released May 16, featuring huge stars like Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan. Safe to say, this album had a great deal of expectations to meet. But even amidst the pressures to end his Weeknd persona off with a hit, the album exquisitely compiles a beautiful representation of Abel’s diverse talents in exploring his distinct sound.
To begin the album, “Wake Me Up” actually sounds like a realistic wake up for listeners. Starting off with a methodically slow and quiet feeling, the song begins to pick up in beat and rhythm around two minutes into the song. It feels like Abel’s purpose for including “Wake Me Up” was to pull listeners into this final listening experience, which definitely worked on me and left me excited to continue the auditory experience.
One small detail that could easily be lost when listeners use shuffle mode are the seamless and incredible transitions between songs. It feels there are no beginnings or ends to the songs, just one long masterpiece of diverse, obscure sounds. I particularly love the transition from “Cry For Me” through “I Can’t F–king Sing” then into “São Paulo.” “I Can’t F–king Sing” is a 12 second song, acting more so as a transition than a song, that includes a reference to the Sofi Stadium incident where his voice cracked and had to stop the concert. This unique aspect serving as a segue really just reinstated the eccentric and uniqueness that is The Weeknd.
Speaking of “Cry For Me,” I think this was the standout song for the album that will get most popular. The song has an aggressive feel to it with distorted sound effects and strong presence of percussion. It has that instantly recognizable sound quality that The Weeknd is known for but at the same time, “Cry For Me” offers a different take that is totally attention grabbing. I couldn’t help but keep bopping my head to the beat. This nostalgic and specific aspect of the Weeknd’s music is what really intrigued me in the end.
One of his lead singles that he released prior to the whole album was “Timeless” featuring Playboi Carti. The song has already been trending on Tik Tok and has gained traction for good reason. The song naturally has this catchy quality to it that ends up getting stuck in your head after. The addition of Playboi Carti also offers a nice contrasting voice that blends well with Abel’s voice. Overall, I definitely expect “Timeless” to be one of the most popular songs off the album.
Despite the album’s well done job with creating memorable and different songs, the album is very long. 22 songs is a lot to take in when first listening to it, and I think Abel could’ve gone without a few of them,because they blended into the background and didn’t add a lot to the album. That being said, I wouldn’t really count the 12 second “ I Can’t F–king Sing” or the 22 second “Until We’re Skin & Bones” songs as true songs, but that still leaves the lengthy 20 songs that. Frankly, I can’t remember much about the middle songs of the album. Even if every single song was a beautiful and catchy hitting song, it’s practically impossible for listeners to remember all of them.
Other than the length, the album is perfectly concluded in the last song titled after the album name, “Hurry Up Tomorrow.” Contrasting to the synthetic and unconventional sounds found in the majority of the songs, this final one is a beautiful ballad, envisioning Abel entering heaven, signifying the goodbye to “The Weeknd” persona forever. This slow, rich, and euphoric feel to the ballad is genuinely astonishing to listen to. After listening to this seamless journey, this was a raw standout track that differed from the rest. The moving lyrics of “I have no more fights left to win; Tie me up to face it, I can’t run away” represents these real emotions not typically portrayed in Abel’s work. It is simply a masterpiece.
Despite the addition of a few too many songs, “Hurry Up Tomorrow” was the perfect cherry on top for The Weeknd’s record-breaking music career. I can say without doubt this album will be “timeless,” and one for the history books.
