Album Review: Starboy by The Weeknd

On Starboy, Abél Tesfaye succumbs to the same, sullen excesses as fellow Torontonian Drake.

In 2015, The Weeknd graduated from underground sadsack to aboveground sadsack, albeit one with an Academy Award nomination, two Grammys and three global chart-toppers to his misspelled name.

But mainstream adulation for Abél Tesfaye's musical project has its downsides. Whereas previous slow-jams “Wicked Games” and “The Morning” saw him mewl in obscurity, hit songs about medically-induced numbness and bad sex turned him into the international face (and dreads) of being perpetually bummed out.

Keanu Reeves must have been glad for the diverted attention.

One year later, the dreads are gone, yet the complaining remains.

Despite The Weeknd’s new flat-top and Daft Punk-assisted singles, his album, Starboy, is far from a much-needed reinvention. It will be warmly received by anyone who met The Weeknd in 2015 and wants more of the same; for those who’ve followed Tesfaye since the beginning of the decade, weariness is surely setting in.

(Coarse language.)

It opens and closes with the Daft Punk collaborations “Starboy” and “I Feel It Coming”, respectively. The pulsating, cinematic grandeur of the former is offset by The Weeknd trying his hand at comedy (sorry: “comedy”) within, sarcastically kicking off by admitting he’s trying to put us “in the worst mood”. The laughs stop there.

(In it, he also refers to Brad Pitt’s Legends of the Fall, though Meet Joe Black better captures the album’s absurdly miserable disposition and interminable length, not to mention the accompanying music videos in which he's viciously killed.)

“Starboy” is followed by the morose “Party Monster” (co-written by Lana Del Rey, who gets a better showcase on “Stargirl Interlude”) and the Bloc Party C-side “False Alarm”. The opening trilogy tells the same story repeatedly; women are honey traps, everyone’s out to get Abel and the clubs are just too darn loud these days.

At least those songs and themes are recognisably The Weeknd’s. What follows alternates between decent Michael Jackson pastiches (“A Lonely Night”, “Secrets”), unimaginative EDM (“Rockin’”) and half-hearted trap (“Reminder”, “Six Feet Under”). Individually, there are no egregious sins; collectively, they reveal an artist hedging his bets and throwing everything except new ideas at the wall.

At nearly 69 minutes, it’s a tedious ordeal. With this and Drake’s Views, I fear Canada’s best and brightest singers are trying to push the constraints of what a CD can actually hold. Will Justin Bieber’s next effort be a three-sided concept album? Will Avril Lavigne return to give us her Zaireeka?

Not even Kendrick Lamar – becoming decreasingly picky with his feature spots – can breathe life onto Starboy, though his duet “Sidewalks” is given the centrepiece spot. You’d expect a song with that title and guest to carry some emotional heft, maybe recalling the young black men killed on America’s streets. Instead, it’s all about coming to terms with fame. You know, for a change.

The highlight is instead “I Feel It Coming”, a smooth, summer-ready ballad that sounds as if it was written during Daft Punk’s sessions for “Get Lucky”. It’s tacked onto the end of the 18-track record, treated like an afterthought. He instead prioritises the now-exhausting beats that made him a star. It’s understandable. But to paraphrase his Canadian cousin, The Weeknd is being rewarded for his worst behaviour.

2/5

Starboy is now available.

(Coarse language.)

Photo: XO