The Weeknd Releases New Album
Pictured is the album cover for The Weeknd’s new album, “After Hours.” Photo by Variety
By Emma Ralls
A&E Editor
On March 20, Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, better known as “The Weeknd,” released his fourth studio album, titled “After Hours.” According to an article in Complex, this album is meant to be a follow-up and flow coherently with his album “My Dear Melancholy,” which was released in 2018. This will also be his first studio album released since 2016’s “Starboy” and will end his one-year hiatus from music.
This album contains 14 tracks and has a runtime of 56 minutes, but you can also listen to “After Hour’s (Deluxe),” which contains five more songs and has a runtime of an hour and 14 minutes. On “After Hours (Deluxe),” you will see songs featuring other artists, for example, the song “Heartless – vaporwave edition” features artists Lil Uzi Vert and Da Heala, but the original After Hours album is just The Weeknd in all his glory.
When asked about his album before it’s release in an interview with Complex, The Weeknd said his album will hopefully take listeners on a journey with a central character to guide the way.
“I feel confident with where I’m taking this [new] record,” Tesfaye told Complex. “There’s also a committed vision and character being portrayed, and I get to explore different sides of me that fans have never seen.”
The album includes three singles which the, Weeknd debuted before the release of his album. These three songs are “Heartless,” “Blinding Lights” and the album’s title track “After Hours.” Both “Heartless” and “Blinding Lights” hit number one on Billboard’s hot 100 charts. The Blinding Lights single has over 600 million streams on Spotify and has become a quick favorite to fans. With a 1980s and synth-heavy pop vibe, it’s no wonder why it stayed at number one on Billboard’s Hot 100 charts for five weeks.
The song focuses on a love that got away, a strong contrast to that of the song “Heartless,” which is more of an anti-love song and shows the Weeknd in more of a “bachelor” mode. In an interview with Highsnobiety, The Weeknd talked about the persona he played in the “Heartless.”
“It was the first song I wrote after the album ‘My Dear Melancholy,’ so it felt fitting for me to put it out,” Tesfaye said. “I play a character in the video who becomes compromised and then overcompensates with all the sins that Vegas provides. It’s a great introduction to the next chapter of my life.”
To publicize his new album, The Weeknd released “The After Hours Short Film.” This is a five minute visual directed by Anton Tammi. The video picks up directly after the Weeknd finished performing “Blinding Lights” on Jimmy Kimmel Live earlier this year and takes the viewer on an eerie and disorienting journey through Los Angeles. The Weeknd also went on SNL to perform one of the songs off his new album to generate some buzz and perform his song “Scared To Live,” which had not been released at the time.
Just before the release of “After Hours,” The Weeknd dedicated his album to a longtime fan named Lance who ran the XO Podcast and the @TheXOPodcast2 Twitter account and had recently passed away.
“RIP LANCE aka XOPODCAST. You were one of the true original backbones of my XO fanbase,” The Weeknd tweeted. “Can’t believe I’m finding out about this today. I’m dedicating ‘After Hours’ to you, my friend.”
Some say the release of “After Hours” might be the biggest of his career. Apple Music said on March 18 that “After Hours” had broken a record previously held by Billie Eilish, with more than 1 million pre-adds. Along with merchandise/album bundles available on The Weeknd’s official webstore, a boost in sales may be coming from a concert ticket/album bundle for the Weeknd’s upcoming tour.
The Weeknd’s upcoming tour will be his first since 2017. Shows will begin in early June and have dates lined up to perform in cities across North America, the UK and Europe. “After Hours” is streaming on all music sites and is available for purchase online.