If Spotify Wrapped was around in 2013, mine would’ve been dominated by The Weeknd. And after a long period of distance from his music, I think he might come close to topping my Wrapped in 2022. 

When I say distance, I really mean it. To cut a long story short: he drops a poor album in 2015, I rarely search his name thereafter, grow up, get a job and one day I hear Take My Breath while closing down a restaurant. Suddenly, The Weeknd is back on my radar. 

It’s why I gave him another chance and pressed play on his excellent recent project, Dawn FM. But before I wax lyrical about this new Weeknd, let me contextualise my following of him up to now.

My teenage self owed a lot to Abel Tesfaye (his real name). The Weeknd – along with frequent collaborator at the time Drake – was the artist who drew me away from the indie landfill and towards a new world of RnB and rap music. 

For a kid like myself, this was a world shrouded in mystery. But rather than frighten and shoo me back to the comfort of guitar music, I gained entry to the cool club at a very young age. Maybe I used a fake ID. 

Mystery was something The Weeknd embodied best – and it wasn’t just about why the ‘e’ was missing. It’s hard to imagine now, but he made his first careers steps under a veil of anonymity. His songs were posted on Youtube under the alias “xoxxxoooxo”. Interviews and live footage were at short supply. All fans could go off was this angelic voice, juxtaposed with music of the sombrest order and themes which quite frankly I had absolutely no business familiarising myself with. Admittedly, that’s actually a lot to go off. Especially if we consider…

Trilogy. The compilation album gluing together his first three mixtapes. This was like a sort of Bible to me, only it was full of references to sex and drugs. Not very holy, I know. But I treated it as such, and listened, studied and puzzled over it almost constantly throughout the summer of 2013.

It was perfect, and being 30 songs long, I could re-enter it at any point and notice something new. There are some blisteringly good tracks on it, almost too many to name a select few. I mean, just look at the ones off his first mixtape House of Balloons alone! Each of which is, dare I say, really quite sexy, and two contain slick samples of Beach House and Siouxsie & the Banshees respectively. For a first release, great artistry was on show straight away. 

Summer became autumn, and he released his debut studio album Kiss Land, aka one of the most underrated albums of the 2010s (objections not welcome, I am the voice of reason!!!).

In short, I joined the jet stream at the perfect/worst time (depending on if you’re my parent), was swept into the world of The Weeknd and had all the drug jargon to show for it. Almost a decade on and even without a refresher course I can still remember the lyrics to all 40 songs! Where’s my medal?

So why did I take a 180 degree turn? Deep analysis probably isn’t necessary. Beauty Behind the Madness flattered to deceive. To prove my point, try naming as many tracks from it besides The Hills and I Can’t Feel My Face. See?

The Weeknd turned into a mainstream artist whose words and music said and did little for me. As I approached adulthood, what was once cool and hedonistic became actually quite cringe. Lyrics like “I’m a motherfuckin’ starboy” and, even more so, “Girl, I do this often, make that pussy poppin'” simply weren’t landing. So I took off. Goodbye, Abel.

Until now! I feel the need to write about Dawn FM because in the last few weeks I’ve been unable to escape it. It’s stayed on repeat and at the top of my blame list is the album’s unofficial opener Gasoline – far too catchy for me to maintain any sort of variety in my recent music listening. It sets the tone for the first string of songs on the album, which plays like a mini DJ set. It’s 15 minutes that vibrate with energetic, electronic synth-pop. It feels like something from the 80s but it’s got that modern edge that reminds you it’s as fresh as a daisy. You can’t help but dance, and as I train for a half-marathon it’s really helped put some much needed movement back into my stiff hips.

There’s a couple of standout moments in the early stages of the album. It’s hard to describe, generally speaking, how just a few seconds of music can really prick up your ears and send a tingle down your spine. Let’s call it a sweet spot. Here, it can be felt in Sacrifice (the grove on this?!) when at 00:23 Abel breaks up the first verse with ‘My, ooh‘ as a piano momentarily bolsters the already hard-hitting beat. In the aforementioned Gasoline, the transition from verse to hook at 1:24 (“And I love it when you watch me sleep…”) ironically feels like some sort of awakening; the change of pitch and tone having the effect of The Weeknd’s voice coming to life.

The comparatively laid-back but equally catchy Out of Time lowers the pace of the album, all the while allowing The Weeknd to get some stuff off his chest. He exposes his vulnerable side; there’s this girl he loves but lets slip away. The subject matter is nothing new, and I think of Tears in the Rain (the closer on Kiss Land) as a point of reference. But the sentiment feels different now. Whereas a decade ago he’d lament losing a lover before admitting he was only going to go back to his old ways, pour some more lean into his cup and treble his body count, it’s clear now he’s pretty much past all of that.

Is There Someone Else? is further evidence of this: “I don’t want to be a prisoner to who I used to be, I swear I changed my ways for the better“. By his own admission, Abel is ‘sober lite’, having removed hard drugs and heavy drinking from his life. And while I won’t sit here and knock popstars for taking drugs – it seems to come with the territory – we’ve seen how substance abuse can derail careers and it’s good to assume that The Weeknd now has more control over his life. Perhaps this explains why it’s extra satisfying to enjoy his music again.

Here and there, we encounter blemishes on the album. The second half is markedly weaker than the first, and some tracks really struggle to stick in your mind. Less Than Zero, for example, sounds like a sped up version of his billion-time streamed Save Your Tears, which I can say with confidence we’ve all heard plenty of times before. The lowlight for me is Every Angel is Terrifying. You can see what’s he’s doing with it, but the attempt to reinforce the radio motif feels more like the soundtrack to a bad trip.

Overall, Dawn FM is superb. Can we call it a return to form? Not really. If we did, Abel could simply refute the claim by taking his four Grammys and however many millions of dollars, turning around and walking off with a big smug grin on his face. 

However, this album feels like something of a turning point. Big hitters from After Hours and older tracks like Wanderlust and A Lonely Night represented an orientation towards an electrified 80s sound which bordered on being gimmicky. It’s only now on Dawn FM where this move feels to have consolidated itself to the extent where it’s unquestionably The Weeknd and unquestionably great. I’m (back) here for it!