I just had my Gatsby moment: Dizzy Gillespie never fucking loved me. But that’s okay, because I just fell in love with The Weeknd.
Yes, with that Weeknd that I used to ignore because he was a little outside my preferred genre of music, and, well, with me being a goddamn musical snob… it is what it is. I was basically just a massive jerk who automatically assumed Abel Tesfaye was just another uninteresting character.
Boy, was I wrong!
For the past month I have given a close listen to his old stuff (“Trilogy”, “Beauty Behind The Madness”, “House Of Balloons”, “Kiss Land”) and I’ve been absolutely mesmerized. That right there is some stunning material, my friend! I just can’t believe the guy who sings generic shit like “Starboy” or “Heartless” is the same guy who came up with those songs. Wow! I was baffled. I still am.
So here’s a few things that made this guy stand out (for me, at least):
1) Well, first of all, he nearly singlehandedly created a subgenre. And you can’t really define it. It’s minimalistic & very graphic, it’s mysterious, it’s melancholy and unsettling music by swingin’ piano men and sultry sirens for hardboiled hepcats and leggy lookers. It’s late-night listening for losers, and the soundtrack to strolls under street lights on foggy nights. But it’s not really confined to any particular genre. It’s not just about music, either. It’s more of a mood, a vibe, a certain sound. You know it when you hear it.
[Accolade] Ramin Djawadi is also a fan of this song, apparently. Check out his cover, it’s as exquisite as it gets. The guy is a brilliant musician and you should check out ALL of his music, everything he does is a thing of beauty. [Accolade]
2) He has one of the best voices of this generation. But that’s not all. He has this beautiful angel voice that whispers devil words. Hella intriguing. Well, what can I say? I like beautiful voices telling me terrible things.
His voice sounds almost like it was soaked in a vat of honey & soft angel feathers, left hanging in a caramel smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car made entirely of butter.
That voice right there is the perfect drinking companion. The-Weeknd-with-a-oxycodone-hangover voice on his it’s-either-starboy-or-sadboy lyrics. Pretty stellar, especially when compared to that cold mainstream garbage.
3) He’s a very camera-shy guy and I love that! I mean, we live in an era when everything is so excessive. Everybody nowadays will just show you on social media EVERYTHING about them: how they live, who they hang with, what they just ate etc.
It’s exactly in this context that I think it’s so damn refreshing when you bump into a guy that doesn’t tell you much about himself and keeps his private life…well, private. I don’t know what this dude likes to eat for breakfast or who he is he going to spend the night with and that adds extra-value to his persona. He doesn’t even bother with posting photos of himself and that alone makes me believe he must be a damn interesting person.
He’s a total misfit according to modern social media standards and I like that A LOT!
4) He doesn’t seem to have any musical standards to tyrannise him. And I think that is something that has to do with telling the truth… he just tells his story and if you tell your story… to me that’s what the real music is all about. He is just a street boy with no particular talent for producing deep lyrics and he has no problem with telling it as it is and not otherwise.
But, ironically, he dissects his own shallowness with a certain depth. He’s got those “I make her suck it with gold grills” lyrics that lead to those “I lay my head on a thousands beds” lyrics. He’s got those “I’m still drippin’ down from my nose” lyrics that lead to those “Got the walls kicking like they’re six month pregnant”. I like a lot these unexpected transitions from a reign of sex & drugs to a realm of intense depth.
And this is exactly why you should never overlook shallowness: because shallowness, just like depth and intensity, has its own place and there is no good reason to be entirely dismissive of it. Crocodile tears are still tears at the end of the day.
5) He lacks that smugness and arrogance that I despise (both in celebrities and in normal people). He’s this very humble, down-to-earth guy and that makes him really stand out to me because that’s a rare quality to possess.
Just imagine that this guy has actually said that the reason he was keeping his face hidden at the beginning of his career has been — literally — his lack of self-confidence. He was just a Toronto boy who didn’t think much about himself.
He is also notorious for having said that he declines interviews because, with him not finishing high-school, in his head he still has this insecurity when he’s talking to someone educated. That right there was a thing of beauty. I think it’s simply beautiful how this dude is not even remotely aware of what a lovely person he really is.
6) His music is born from the same place jazz was born. Personally, I don’t like The Weeknd for his lyrical content. I couldn’t quote 10 lines from him (max. 4, as shown somewhere above), but I just love his music. The production, the unsettling instrumentals, his voice and the ambiance are fantastic enough. This kind of music lives in the same realm as jazz does & it shares the same spinal cord. And heart.
I think his old music works so good because it’s got even jazz impressionists feel towards otherwise lascivious content. But after that, he will need to come up with good songs — specifically good lyrics. And I really hope he has it in him. Because if he had it, he’d be extremely epic.
7) He sings with honesty about his struggle with fame and I find this to be interesting. His relationship with fame is at the forefront of many of his songs. It’s almost like he read “The Beautiful and Damned” by F. Scott Fitzgerald and he’s tying to bring that vibe into his music. It’s okay, I know he didn’t & that I’m just projecting, it’s just a way of saying that I totally get where he comes from.
Many of his lyrics explore his huge obsession with decadence and high societal-validation leading to moral degradation and eventual mental decline. And most of his videos depict just that: a man’s descent into the darkness and the wrenching emptiness attached to fame (“Starboy” — where he kills his old self to better fit fame, “Heartless” — where he’s spiraling down straight into madness etc.)
I remember when G-Eazy said at some point that it took him the better part of six years living out Hollywood’s best-known cliché (sex, drugs & rock ’n’ roll) to realize he could no longer recognize Gerald (that’s his real name) in G-Eazy.
Check this out, this song alone is the epitome of fame. Ignore the chorus & listen carefully to the lyrics, to what he’s saying:
Both The Weeknd and G-Eazy are right, though. It is what it is.
If you step inside the Matrix, there’s no dodging bullets. Fame is a very dark place to be.
I went from staring at the same four walls for twenty-one years
To seeing the whole world in just twelve months
Been gone for so long I might have just found God
Well, probably not, if I keep my habits up […]
Probably not, if I tweak all day just to sleep at night
God damn, I’m high, my doctor told me to stop
And he gave me something to pop
And I mix it up with some Adderall and I wait to get to the top
And I mix it up with some alcohol and I pour it up in a shot […]
Last week was rough, I’m still drippin’ down from my nose […]
And I don’t got any friends […]
But it’s okay, I adapted anyway
Adapted to these models
Whose adapted to the bottle
They take it down like water
Just to burn away their sorrows
I’ll stay up till tomorrow
Just to tear down all their morals […]
She grind hard for tuition
She grind hard till her teeth chip
I make her hide it with gold grills
I make her suck it with gold grills
In the back room of the VIP she don’t ever sleep
And this ain’t nothing to relate to
Even if you tried. (The Weeknd, Kiss Land/Adaptation)
That’s just a little taste of what fame really feels.
Welcome inside the Leviathan. Here light courts obscurity, beauty mates with deformity, the ideal is mixed with the unspeakable, evil dances with good, and the next morning you awake to live it all over again. Spatially, you cannot be removed.
Here, you lose the important heart connection to all things. No one sees you — they see success. You no longer exist. That means that it’s hard to make human connections. There is no “real, true” element to it. What it comes down to is persona. In order to be it, you have to forget who you really are. You give up everything to be it. You give up yourself & reality to live a made up thing that isn’t real. It costs a lot to maintain an illusion. If you want to keep it further — something has to be done for it. The longer — the more.
Here, with time you realize that the mind lies. You start to realize that there is no such things as success and achievement. With each new thing you achieve — it’s the same. You got to the top of the hill — and now there is nothing again. No satisfaction. And no matter what you’ve accomplished — no one cares. But your mind showed it differently. It told you about how awesome you would feel about yourself and how everyone would care. That leads to suffering. It’s not just loneliness. And this ain’t nothing to relate to. Even if you tried.
