If there's a “What the f*ck” artist
for 2011, I might have to give it to The Weeknd, because his roots
are about as shaded as is his personal life despite the fact that his
House of Balloons and Thursday mixtapes have pulled together hundreds
of thousands of downloads in 2011 thus far. He's been shortlisted on
the Polaris Music Prize, had his track “High For This” featured
on an Entourage promo, and managed to make the two man showdown
between Drake and Frank Ocean in the R&B arena suddenly a three
gun draw. Where did this guy come from?
Things couldn’t be bigger for the
Canadian songster right now, as the standard he’s set is already
beginning to cast a shadow over Frank Ocean’s Nostalgia, Ultra,
and looking to suppress the success of Drizzy's Take Care
later this year. The mainstream transition is ripe, and The Weeknd’s
personal brand of extraterrestrial atmospheric R&B is enough to
ensure that he’ll be worldwide before the end of 2011. His debut
mixtape House of Balloons hacked away potential contenders for
the top spots of Best So Far lists earlier this year, and his
follow-up Thursday in the three tape trilogy only armored the
success further, expressing newer elements of versatility that expand
sonically while wearing new features, proving his ability to produce
high pedigree follow-ups, and revealing further complexities and
sides to his creative polygon. Doc McKinney and Illanglo don't seem
to be going anywhere, so we're looking at a three set of artist and
producers that's built to handcraft musical velvet.
When it comes down to the end, Weeknd
works because he knows how to make depression work while keeping
appeal. There’s no simplicity or generalization of moods in his
music--the spectrum is vast, and his personal daily hells come
through in a manner that the listener can relate to both lyrically
and emotionally. They’re downtempo soul soundscapes that warp the
present into an intoxicated doldrum that refuses to get redundant,
and his mode refuses to fall into the antiquated blueprint that R&B
often resorts to for survival. He's naphazoline ophthalmic and a dose
of xanax for the ears, and continues to offer us something that, R&B
as it tries to be, remains chameleon, not entirely welcoming a
logical label.
We'll see where things continue to go,
but expect the name to get passed around plenty as the spin moves on.
Here's a few tracks in case you're absent from the know:
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