Where the story can go next after that is anyone’s guess, but he’s given us a couple hints: in addition to the previously released singles “Dancing in the Flames,” “Timeless” with Playboi Carti, and “Sao Paulo” with Anitta – all of which seem to draw reference to a sort of baptism by fire – he’s also posted some teasers depicting himself as a baby. He even shared a Biblical quote: “Humanity in its present form is frail, deteriorating, and weak. To share in eternal life, however, our bodies must be transformed.”
In any case, the last five years have been a whirlwind of successes, failures, and ambitious creative risks for The Weeknd, but he’s maintained his position as one of music’s most compelling and endlessly entertaining figures – not to mention his position on top of the charts. We’re looking back at some of the most memorable moments from his latest trilogy of albums as we prepare for its thrilling conclusion on January 31.
The Unluckiest Man Alive
Honestly, with every freak occurrence that’s happened to The Weeknd over the last five years, it’s pretty impressive that he’s still the second-streamed artist on global Spotify. The delay of Hurry Up Tomorrow due to the still-raging Los Angeles fires – Tesfaye wisely opting not to drop a project whose two most popular singles reference a city on fire and dancing in the flames – is only the latest. Whether it’s After Hours dropping as COVID infections first soared, Doja Cat’s tonsil surgery forcing her to drop out of the rescheduled tour, or the final show of the same tour being cancelled due to a nationwide shutdown of Rogers’ networks, it’s seemed like a curse has been following him. Add to that the Grammys’ inexplicable oversights of his work, losing his voice mid-show at SoFi Stadium, and even tweeting “LET’S GOOOOOOOO,” intending to announce a Dawn FM TV special, at the exact moment that Russia invaded Ukraine, and we can only imagine where he would be if his luck turned around.
For the History Books
Despite all of that, The Weeknd still managed to score the most successful song of all time – and according to Billboard, that’s a statistical fact. After Hours’ second single, “Blinding Lights,” dethroned Chubby Checker’s “The Twist,” the sixties dance craze that held the record for sixty-one years, on November 23, 2021, after spending a record-obliterating 57 weeks in the chart’s top 10 (and 90 weeks total on the Hot 100). A delightfully eighties-infused synth-pop banger that still fit snugly in Tesfaye’s dark-pop aesthetics, it spawned endless imitators and resulted in just about every song vying for pop attention sounding exactly like it for the next two or three years. Overplayed? Sure, but you know you’d still turn it up if it came on.
Super Bowl Sunday
What better showcase for the world’s most popular song than the world’s most-watched television program? Putting a final stamp on the After Hours era before squirrelling away to work on the trilogy’s second segment, The Weeknd’s halftime show at 2021’s Super Bowl LV was one of the most memorable and ambitious performances in NFL history. In addition to the memes it generated – like the image of the red-suited Sin City showman stumbling around in a disorienting mirror maze – the scope and choreography of the performance left an impression, as Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium was invaded by hundreds of masked, bandaged dancers. Not only that, it was reported he spent over seven million dollars of his own money to boost the budget. That’s dedication to leaving an impact.
Character Work
Whether it’s the exaggerated, party-starting version of himself with the extravagant hairstyle that coloured his early albums, or the Starboy himself, The Weeknd bolstering his musical output with an underlying storyline and symbolic characters is nothing new – it’s part of what made that Super Bowl performance so compelling. As far as the new trilogy is concerned, we’ve already discussed the bloody guy with the red suit and the ‘80s mustache, but his Dawn FM persona really stood out. Taking the Internet by surprise when he posted the album artwork – depicting him made up as an elderly version of himself, he fully brought the persona out to play in the “Gasoline” music video – where he fights younger versions of himself. We’ll see if the life cycle continues.
A Shocking Confession
Many of The Weeknd’s characters and video narratives are pretty dark and serious – but he’s also shown in recent years that he’s able to make fun of himself. His biggest media tie-in of the new trilogy era might have been recording the track “Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” for the Avatar 2 soundtrack, but the most memorable was easily his appearance on American Dad, which aired only two months after After Hours came out. In the episode, Smith family daughter Hayley repeatedly tries to seduce the singer before he reveals that his X-rated lyrics have all been lies, ultimately serenading her with a far-too-catchy track called “I’m A Virgin.” Good luck getting this one out of your head.
Swing and a Miss
Of course, when it comes to branching out into other media, not all of The Weeknd’s ideas have proven to be winners. In a move that probably would have been seriously career-damaging for almost anyone else, his team-up with Euphoria creator Sam Levinson on 2023’s HBO series The Idol was met with critical pans across the board. With some questionable acting choices after the soft-spoken singer placed himself in the role of intimidating cult leader Tedros, the show mistook shock value for storyline and ended up flailing, having its runtime abruptly trimmed to only five episodes mid-season. At least the accompanying original soundtrack, featuring fifteen new tracks from artists like Troye Sivan, Moses Sumney, Mike Dean and The Weeknd himself, was pretty great.
High-Profile Connections
The Weeknd has been a true superstar for around a decade now, but when an artist is able to rack up admirers like Jim Carrey, Quincy Jones and Elton John, you know they’re reaching a sort of imperial phase. Carrey, who grew up about a thirty-minute drive down Highway 404 north of Abel himself, served as Dawn FM’s narrator, the radio personality welcoming listeners to the afterlife, while the late, great Jones tells a story about relationship troubles to tie in to the album’s theme of dealing with regret. The biggest praise, however, might have been Elton’s. Often one to give his seal of approval to newer artists, he penned a piece for Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2020 article, closing it with this: “Like Prince, he marches to his own beat. That’s an exemplary way for an artist to be.” Here’s a track that samples one of Elton’s classics.
Return to the Desert
There has always been an impressive rolodex of collaborators attaching their names to one of The Weeknd’s projects – during the recent trilogy era, that list includes a list of superstar acts as diverse as Ariana Grande, Travis Scott, Post Malone, FKA twigs and Rosalia – but his best showcase of flexing his collaborative muscles might have been a joint headlining performance with Swedish House Mafia on one of the world’s biggest stages. After previously headlining Coachella in 2018, Abel accepted the spot last-minute after some predictably erratic behaviour from Kanye West led him to drop out. Running through the hits with the DJ trio who produced some of his Dawn FM singles, it was two artists known for large-scale spectacle operating at the peak of their game.
Going to War
There’s a long list of admirers, sure, but The Weeknd also has some notable haters. Despite being the artist who essentially plucked him from obscurity after posting the then-anonymous Abel’s music to his blog in 2010, Drake’s relationship with his protégé turned sour in recent years (much, it seems, like his relationship with just about everyone he meets). While we all know how Kendrick Lamar took the baton and ran with it this past year, The Weeknd was front and centre when the beef first started to brew. He appeared on both of Metro Boomin’s albums, We Don’t Trust You – which contained Lamar’s incendiary “Like That” verse – and We Still Don’t Trust You, where he addressed things most directly on the song “All To Myself” and sings about a bullet dodged in not fully committing to OVO.
The Billions Club
Despite any turmoil that might arise, though, at the end of the day, the numbers don’t lie. In fact, The Weeknd has enough songs that have racked up a billion streams on Spotify to put on a full concert with just those. Taking the stage in December 2024 for an event called Billions Club Live, he assumed his crown as the artist with the most songs that have reached the milestone in the platform’s history – with an impressive 25 and counting. Running from some of his earliest smash hits like “The Hills” and “Earned It” to recent collabs like “Creepin” and tracks from The Idol soundtrack, as well as a couple new tunes to preview Hurry Up Tomorrow, it’s the kind of achievement that just about any artist – no matter how big – would dream of having.
