22-year-old Abel Tesfaye (or The Weeknd to you and me) has seen himself become the hottest talent in R&B with his release of Trilogy. His meteoric rise has seen three mixtapes – House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence -and these originally free mixtapes have been been honed into Trilogy, a brilliant compilation album which takes the three mixtapes and remasters the tracks, coupling them with three previously unheard tunes.
Whilst many will suggest the album isn’t value for money (if you were paying attention last calendar year you may already own 95% of this album for free), that’s really missing the point. Trilogy is the first release from Tesfaye since he signed to a major record label (Republic Records, by the way) and it also cements his place as the pin-up for the PBR&B world.
“You don’t know, what’s in store” is the opening lyric on first song ‘High For This’ and, whilst that isn’t strictly true considering we know 27 of the 30 songs already, perhaps those words are representative of Tesfaye’s reluctance to be pigeon-holed. Whilst every review may call him “the next Drake”, The Weeknd was a faceless musical outfit until a few months ago when. Tesfaye’s tentative approach to stardom is something which is refreshing and it will resonate with young fans who have supported openly bisexual Frank Ocean into becoming one of the genre’s big-hitters.
Tesfaye’s music is R&B for thinking fans. Tesfaye’s maturity and deft turn of phrase is something which no contemporary R&B star (especially not the biggest-selling stars like Chris Brown) has shown over the past few years. Disc one House of Balloons features samples from Beach House and Siouxsie and The Banshees, showing Tesfaye’s influences go beyond Drake, who appears later on in the album with a guest verse on disco two’s ‘The Zone’.
Echoes of Silence (disc three) is where Tesfaye really shows his quality, though. The mixtape was released as an appendix and final chapter to the preceding two, and Tesfaye noted that the Echoes of Silence was the hangover mixtape. It was nominated for the Canadian Polaris Prize (Mercury Prize equivalent, basically) and the opening cover of Michael Jackson’s ‘Dirty Diana’ is particularly engaging. On the third disc you get a sense of what producers Illangelo (Drake) and Doc McKinney (Santigold) bring to the table. ‘The Fall’ is an absolute masterpiece with soaring vocals from Tesfaye and minimal beats which captivate you. The final disc is unquestionably gripping, but Tesfaye will have to learn that his lyricism, whilst bleak and harrowing, occasionally needs restraint.
Tesfaye’s final verse on final track ‘Till Dawn (Here Comes the Sun)’ features self-doubt when he suggests “you’ll want me…then you’ll hate me”. His caution of the music industry hasn’t done him any harm and judging on the strength of quality and character Tesfaye exhibits on Trilogy, that last quote is unlikely to ever come true. The Weeknd are making R&B credible again and Abel Tesfaye may become the genre’s unsure, self-doubting hero of the decade.
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James Daniel Rodger
Dance Yrself Clean
