If we are being really honest, it's very obvious that the Weeknd is much more well adjusted and functional, then some of the most raving fans of 'Trilogy' realized....You see him in person, in concert, and it's clear, that while he did live as a somewhat transient (emotionally, literally, etc) early 20 something in the streets of Toronto, he wasn't an out of control drug addict Patrick Bateman of downtown Toronto. Like many great artists, he channeled his moments of greatest pain, weakness, hedonisim into great art...but his music was never as simple as being high, or poor, or sober, or famous. That does it a great disservice.
Weeknd is 100% capable of making that same kind of music, it will never leave him. You hear it in songs like 'Wild Love', or 'Lonely Thoughts'. It's a sweeping generalization to dismiss his music as being the creation of drug/alcohol/ or a lifestyle....Not singling you out, but you hear this kind of theory frequently, on this forum, and outside. Songs like 'Enemy', or 'Til Dawn' would fit perfectly on here, as they did on his last one, songs like 'Ordinary Life', try for that feel, but they have shaved off the edges in his music, it's intentional, it's for mass consumption now. It takes someone of some depth and intelligence to appreciate his music, (less so on this latest) for what it really is. It's not about doing coke with hookers, that's the shallow, simple, surface level view. He just lacks song on here that feel authentic, and edgy, painful.
Weeknd is 100% capable of making that same kind of music, it will never leave him. You hear it in songs like 'Wild Love', or 'Lonely Thoughts'. It's a sweeping generalization to dismiss his music as being the creation of drug/alcohol/ or a lifestyle....Not singling you out, but you hear this kind of theory frequently, on this forum, and outside. Songs like 'Enemy', or 'Til Dawn' would fit perfectly on here, as they did on his last one, songs like 'Ordinary Life', try for that feel, but they have shaved off the edges in his music, it's intentional, it's for mass consumption now. It takes someone of some depth and intelligence to appreciate his music, (less so on this latest) for what it really is. It's not about doing coke with hookers, that's the shallow, simple, surface level view. He just lacks song on here that feel authentic, and edgy, painful.
