The Weeknd- House of Ballons/Thursday

[Lord of Kaos]

HOUSE OF BALLOONS​

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Abel Tesfaye, better known by his stage name The Weeknd, is a Canadian Toronto-based R&B singer. His debut mixtape/album House of Ballons has received extremely well reviews from nearly every music site/mag/blog that included it on it. The first song on the tracklisting, High For This, actually suggest that the listener be, as the song implies, high for the best listening experience though sober still presents an incredible sound.



"Trust me girl/You'll wanna be high for this," purrs a seducer near the beginning of this mysterious mix-tape debut. It's reasonable advice. A seamless, self-released concept album that set off an internet brushfire — complete with Twitter clues from evident co-conspirator Drake and Weeknd itself — it traces a woozy, debauched journey over nine slow jams that join the current conversation in hallucinatory r&b and indie rock: James Blake, Frank Ocean, jj, Salem, and Beach House. The rest of the tracks are equally haunting: the rhythm of the aching "What You Need" is built around the surprisingly sad sound of what may be a straw sucking up the last drop of a milk shake — or something more potent.


The Weeknd has a striking high tenor: at points on "House Of Balloons/Glass Table Girls," he sounds like Michael Jackson yelping into an intercom in a Propofol haze. It can all be disturbingly raw, even when — especially when — Weeknd overplay the tales of the tragic high life — check the plea "Bring the drugs, baby/I can bring my pain," on the killing, blue-black "Wicked Games."

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THURSDAY

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Much like House of Balloons, Thursday oozes with drugged-out, sexed-out vibes, Abel Tesfaye this time crooning atop late-night layers of fuzzed-out guitar (Life of the Party), gloomy drum rolls and shoegaze/trip-hop beats (The Birds), delicate acoustic guitar (Rolling Stone), and slow-drip dub (Gone, Heaven or Las Vegas). Drake takes a turn spitting a few lines on The Zone, but Thursday is Tesfaye’s show, in complete control of his dark, serotonin-deprived sonic orgy. If House of Balloons was the out-of-nowhere hype album, Thursday showcases a sonic variety that might have brought the underdog act one step closer to top dog status.

From the album's opening track, you begin to get the understanding of what the album will be about: Drugs and *** in Abel's signature style. By the time the title track comes on, you'll be so drawn in that you'd wish you were, as his first album suggests, high for this. One of the weird songs featured on ‘Thursday’ is the atmospheric ballad ‘The Zone,’ which features a verse from Drake. On the seven-minute track, Weeknd sings of taking drugs and making love to girl while he’s high. Yeah, it’s a weird tune, yet it’s melodic and soft in its production. The crooner yearns, “I’ma touch you right / Let me set this slow, let me get into the zone.” Now, whether he’s drugging her up with his love or with something else is the mystery that Weeknd likes his fans to interpret.

Drake also gets mysterious with his lyrics as he tells a groupie: “Well, girl let’s go / Walk your broken heart through that door / Sit yo sexy ass on that couch / Wipe that lipstick off of your mouth / I take it slow / She in love with my crew / She said make enough so I can try some / I though taking drugs just ain’t you / Be you.” So, be forewarned, ‘The Zone’ is not your atypical R&B ballad. The song is dark, hallucinatory and a little creepy. Much of the music on ‘Thursday’ is very adult so if you are looking for lovey-dovey R&B ballads you won’t find it on here.

 

[Lord of Kaos]

Of the three songs posted in the above link, I recommend listening to either. The birds part 2 would be my favorite of the three presented though. Well sung with good lyrics imo.

 

[JojocIaw]

Good taste in music. (//_o)

+rep

 

[Lord of Kaos]

Good taste in music. (//_o)

+rep

Thanks and good taste in avatars. My Kaguya bio is of Sylar. Best character from Heroes and Star Trek xd

+reps to you too

 

[Lord of Kaos]

INITIATION

The Weeknd turns distortion into art on his latest release “Initiation.” The Canadian singer puts his girl to the test, commanding her “ride it out” with his haunting vocals layered over a chopped-up beat. Possibly a new release of his upcoming mixtape/album, Echoes of Silence, "Initiation" is surely a much more hip-hop-oriented joint from the typically R&B-heavy crooner, who's flexing his rapper chops here. He's still doing the whole codeine-laced, falsetto-turned-screwed vocals thing, too. But his rapping -- and the erratic, industrial production -- is what really stands out here.




CREW LOVE

Appearing as a feature on Drake's recently leaked album, Take Care (which is set to be released in stores on November 15th, be sure to get a copy and support Drake!), The Weeknd lent his vocals to numerous songs, mainly as background vocals and singing harmonies. On Crew Love though, The Weeknd sets the song's tone, crooning over a persistent and pounding percussion. While the Toronto singer directs his portion of the track to the ladies, Drake flips the script and rattles off support for his exclusive group of friends. “There are times that I might blow like 50k on a vacation/ For all my soldiers just to see the looks on all their faces.”

 

[Lord of Kaos]

ECHOES OF SILENCE

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"Baby, I got you/ Until you're used to my face, and my mystery fades," Abel Tesfaye sang on "Rolling Stone". It was a surprisingly self-effacing line for a singer whose mystique is a central part of his appeal. And he's not wrong. By now, we know most of Tesfaye's tricks: his choir-worthy voice, his debauched lyrics, and the rich tapestry of synths and samples that backs it all up. His third full-length in nine months, Echoes of Silence, is more self-referential than ever, repeating lines and themes from previous records, including XO cognac (or ecstasy and oxycontin, if you prefer), and self-destructive behavior. It was novel on his debut House of Balloons, but does it still work three albums in?

Well, it turns out Tesfaye isn't out of surprises: As his fans now know, opening track "D.D." stands for "Dirty Diana", and Tesfaye channels the King of Pop with an eerily accurate vocal facsimile. It's an audacious intro even for an artist whose output has already stretched lyrical and musical themes to depraved extremes. The ease with which Tesfaye can shock and awe listeners at this point feels like something of a victory lap.



Where House of Balloons was a debut tour-de-force, and Thursday an arduous journey into the internal turmoil of a self-loathing narcissist, Echoes of Silence exudes a brazen, animalistic confidence: The production is impeccable but never showy. The songwriting is tighter and more streamlined. The slinky, spectral "Montreal" is the closest thing to a pure pop song Tesfaye has written since "What You Need". And his conversational intonation emphasizes the lingering threat that underlies every lyric.

In lyrical terms, Echoes of Silence is Tesfaye's strongest work. With a clearer and less obtuse narrative arc than Thursday, the album finds his snaky, manipulative persona at its most blatantly corrosive. Album centerpiece "XO / The Host" is a gripping tale of corruption and coercion, featuring one of the record's most awe-inspiring moments: After Tesfaye sings of the girl's mother crying over his new discoveries on her daughter, the beat goes quiet as he self-satisfyingly mocks, "And if they won't let you in/ You know where to find me... 'cause all we ever do is love." It's transparently deceptive, and it slips into "Initiation", a cringe-inducingly detailed tale of drug-fueled *** and his partner having to be willing to meet his "boys" (his drugs, not literal boys lol).

While Tesfaye's voice remains the star attration, Illangelo's production is at a high point on Echoes: From the decadent "Hong Kong Garden" orientalisms on "Outside" to the heart-rending vocal looping on "The Host" to the sleepy-eyed, morning-after bluntness of "Same Old Song", each lecherous tale is lifted by the attentive and elegant production. Those tiny strokes of detail-oriented genius pull Echoes of Silence from "yet another Weeknd mixtape" to its own lithe, cocksure plateau, the same way that the meandering production on Thursday emphasized the numbingly sublime feeling of loss and confusion.




Of course, all Weeknds must end: producer Clams Casino guest produces "The Fall", and his mournful melodies and distorted synths climax in a locust cloud of buzzing and whirring, suddenly rendering Tesfaye's self-reassurances shaky and hollow. The album's eponymous closing track is stark naked, a hospital-bed lament so unflinchingly bright it recalls the Knife's "Still Light" in its mournful fatalism. Tesfaye sounds near tears, and as Echoes peters out with his whimpering, "Don't you leave me all behind/ Don't you leave my little life," it's difficult to tell whether he's quoting a nameless victim or gasping the words himself.

Those four minutes of unguarded sparsity -- Tesfaye's quivering falsetto and a funereal piano-- unwind 2011's most exciting, conflicting, and self-mythologizing musical universe. On closer "Echoes of Silence", is Tesfaye's protagonist finally unraveling or merely beginning anew? That his loosely narrative album trilogy seems like it could begin and end at any one of its entry points seems to hint at the latter. It's a chillingly cyclical picture of decay and self-immolation marking the Weeknd's greatest triumph: an emotional thread so confusing we can love, hate, fear, and be revolted all at once.

Tesfaye's recycling of previous lyrics, melodies, and ideas on Echoes of Silence is bound to give fresh ammo to fairweather fans eager to hurl accusations of diminishing returns and unimaginative retreads at the rising Toronto star. But the repetition is akin to devices used by artists as separate as Terius Nash and Dan Bejar, a self-contained world of idiosyncratic artistry that the Weeknd's trilogy ambitiously embraces, rising above the catcalls of inauthenticity and "PBR&B" lashed at it from the very beginning to somewhere else completely its own.

"I used to do this for the thrill," Tesfaye laments on penultimate Echoes track "Next", and even as his world disintegrates into the desolate closer, it's hard to think of anything more morbidly thrilling in 2011 than listening to the Weeknd methodically destroy himself. Echoes may lack the surprise-and-delight factor of House of Balloons, but it's a strong finish to Tesfaye's first trilogy, providing just enough closure to satisfy, and just enough mystery left to entice us back for the next round.