After Hours It couldn't have come at a better time. The world population is confined because of the coronavirus. The Disney Pus and Netflix smoke after having eaten us the new documentary Tiger king of the pull. The Weeknd, an artist of the very first division that has the budget to make the album that he really wants, launches the continuation of the historical Starboy of 2016.We had more eager to listen to After Hours that the coronavirus crisis was over. Nothing could go wrong. And yet. We only like three songs on the new album from The Weeknd's fourth album after Kissland, Beauty behind the mandness y starboy, The Weeknd's best album to date.
After Hours DELUXE Edition
Not a week after its official release, The Weeknd surprised with a special extended version of After Hours (in a move that is very reminiscent of the executed also this month by rapper Lil Uzi Vert).
The deluxe edition of After Hours contains five new cuts:
- Blinding Lights remix by Chromatics, in collaboration with Johnny Jewel
- save your tears, OPN remix, with Oneohtrix Point Never
- Heartless Vapor Wave Remix, with Lil Uzi Vert and DaHeala
- After Hours The Blaze remix
- scared to live, performed on Saturday Night Live (SNL)
?Criticism of Afterhours: XNUMXs, but not so much
Before getting down to business, a aside: The Weeknd is not just any artist. Like Taylor Swift, Drake or Eminem, he has as much money as fans. The promotion of After Hours in its previous weeks it has been colossal (not only on Instagram). This is the only way to understand the unique event that a new album manages to monopolize the absolute totality of the top of lyrics most consulted in Genius for two days. Achieving this is in itself something colossal that gives a good idea of the convening power of the singer we are analyzing. And to whom, for that very reason, we demand more. We can only demand perfection from Michael Jackson II. Y After Hours Is not perfect.
After Hours, the new album by The Weeknd, INVADE Genius.
Being caught by surprise by a music release is something to celebrate. In matters of art, repetition is installed in comfort and, sooner rather than later, with repetition failure and forgetfulness appear.
The new album of The Weeknd it's very little pop and very much daydream packed with too many classic The Weeknd themes that we already know by heart. The sound moves away Starboy and embraces that of his early works, with significant doses of something we could call contemporary eighties modernism.
How bad you are, Abel. How tormented you must be, poor little Abel. If it weren't for the three masterpieces in the final stretch, In your eyes, blind lights y save your tears, We would be talking about failure. And this, of course, is only our opinion. And also that of the thousands of fans who thought that After Hours would be composed of 13 variations of the fanfare of energy and electricity that is the wonderful Blinding Lights.
And no. After Hours is a collection of themes in which the name of The Weeknd's ex, Bella Hadid, flies over each song. After Hours has an atmosphere ultraviolence by Lana del Rey: leaves us the room full of high mystical echoes. After Hours is a chat conversation between Hadid and The Weeknd. Deep down she's fed up with her pussy, but she keeps braying back. He, to the top of farla, tells her that she is very sorry, that she can change, while she searches WhatsApp (with regrets and cave reverberation) for the chat with the camel and the chat with the other four groupies who you can't afford to let go visa.
And so all the time.
After Hours It gets heavy though it is ideal to listen while you take a bath with the light off, aromatic candles and concerns about the future of the human race in the face of the pandemic.
As it turned out, the single After Hours it was the most representative sound of the album after hours. Understandable, okay.
But that they had not taught us Blinding Lights.
? After Hours: a new chapter in the sad and desolate life of The Weeknd
Poor little Abel Tesfaye. How bad that the little angel is having so much heartbreak. With so much cocaine that, deep down, I wouldn't want to take. But what do you need to take? Because without coca there are no problems, and without problems there is no heartbreak, and without heartbreak there are no songs. Poor little Abel Tesfaye. How bad that the little angel is having so much heartbreak.
Already in its introductory cut, alone again, we get a good dose of the constant atmosphere that will invade After Hours: sadness, desolation, I am no longer the same as before. Help me for God. It is briefly mentioned that he feels at home in Las Vegas. As we already learned in the spectacular video of Blind Lights, Las Vegas will be synonymous with madness and drugs. All the evasion that the toxic The Weeknd needs to escape from the reality of millions and women who have her entrenched:
Oh, oh, oh, how much to light up my star again
And rewire all my thoughts?
Oh baby won't you remind me what I am
And break, break my little cold heart?Oh oh oh how much to light my star again
And wire all my thoughts?
Oh baby why don't you remind me who I am
And break, break my cold little heart?
As soon as you get distracted, The Weeknd's new album enters into a dynamic where a good handful of songs can be mixed in your head as if they were one. too late, scared to live, Escape from LA, Hardest to love (something more poppy and danceable, It seems taken from the OST of Rough diamonds, where The Weeknd participates) have too much in common. Very oneiric, deep and intense. The imprint of the person in charge of the BSO of Rough diamonds, Daniel Lopatin.
Redundant themes ("I've behaved badly, I've done things you shouldn't have seen, it's too late for us, I'm not the man I used to be, etc.") that merge with a constant nostalgic and sleepy atmosphere, excessively ritualistic despite of the kick, snare and synthesizers. We're not saying it's wrong. It is risky and that is always to applaud. But It has not captivated us in the least. And no, we are not too interested in hearing that you had sex with someone in your study (Escape from LA).
? The 3 songs that make up for everything: Blinding lights, in your eyes y save your tears
Those who at the height of the ninth cut have succumbed to the snooze are in luck: cuts 9,10 and 11 represent a 180 degree turn in which The Weeknd dispatches three songs that are INSTANT CLASSICS.
AWESOME
Following the path of drunken synthesizers and eighties atmosphere that already captivated us in Blind Lights, In the second half of the album, two songs full of energy and positivity arrive that build an unexpected danceable lagoon of unambiguous happiness. With in your eyes y save your tears builds a trilogy homage to the music of the eighties that alone justifies Entire After Hours. These three songs are the best of the new album by The Weeknd. Also, the least risky. A sure sound that can't go wrong (in fact, in your eyes it stinks of a video clip, for God's sake, let them erect a statue to that sax).
It is a correct disk. But we were too hyped. We don't learn. Like Abel.