The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind the Madness delivers deeply moving hits

Beauty Behind the Madness, the highly anticipated album by Canadian singer The Weeknd (also known as Abel Tesfaye) hit shelves last week, with Nielsen Music reporting an estimated 412,000 album sales. This was The Weeknd’s second studio release, following his critically acclaimed but less commercially successful albums, Kiss Land and Trilogy, a compilation of three mix tapes recorded between 2011 and 2012 that garnered heavy media attention.

Those familiar with The Weeknd’s past releases might find it surprising that the dark/alt R&B style that characterizes the Trilogy and much of Kiss Land was less evident in this latest album. In its hit singles such as “Can’t Feel My Face” in the lead-up to the album release, he introduces a more pop-oriented sound.

Though Beauty Behind the Madness leaves behind Trilogy producer Doc McKinney, who influenced his earlier sound, it brings back long-time collaborator and producer Illangelo. It also joins The Weeknd with Max Martin, the Swedish hit-maker behind top records by Taylor Swift, Maroon 5 and more. Rumors have it that The Weeknd was several songs deep into an album with Doc McKinney in 2014, fusing his Trilogy sound with Nirvana rock vibes, before Republic Records and the singer agreed to try to make his next release more pop-styled. From that point, successes of songs such as “Earned It,” his feature on Ariana Grande’s “Love Me Harder,” have marked a turn to a different audience, creating buzz around his next album.

Beauty Behind the Madness opens with billowing, distorted arena rock guitars on “Real Life,” setting up the grand entrance for the 14-track album. Similar to the lyrical content of his past work, The Weeknd explores his inability to love and being “destructive” as an ode to his ways of a star, and the implied vices that come with it. After reaching the pinnacle of today’s music stardom at this point in his career, he is not only recognizing the self-destructiveness of his past and present, but also in a sense accepting that it’s a part of the story and path that got him to ‘“real life’” success.

On “Losers,” the beat drop and instrumental component draw the audience in on a hypnotic dance rhythm that hearkens back to The Weeknd’s past as a high school drop-out. The next track, “Tell Your Friends,” marks the first collaboration between The Weeknd and Kanye West, who claims the production credits on this track. It samples Soul Dog’s 1976 song, “Can’t Stop Loving You” for a powerful beat that The Weeknd mixes up with a slightly rapped verse for a dramatic hook. This song features some of The Weeknd’s strongest and most personal verses, yet it isn’t too emotionally heavy, preserving the “jam-out” material that likely Kanye West pushed for, as the song draws inspiration from West’s own “Devil In A New Dress.”

The following tracks, “Often” and “The Hills” were released as singles prior to the album’s release, garnering positive reviews. “Acquainted” is a song based upon a leaked single of a track known as “Girls Born In The 90s” that became the lyrical and chord-progression influence on this song, and shows up in a distorted outro at the end of the song. “Can’t Feel My Face,” the seventh track on the album, was one of the summer’s biggest hits, its catchy baseline and chorus reminiscent of the works of Michael Jackson.

Though some fans might believe the song sacrifices The Weeknd’s true artistic nature and voice, the track is more of an experimentation of a different style, and lyrically has the double entendre of the subject being about a romance or an addiction, recurring themes in The Weeknd’s work. “Shameless” is another strong track lyrically with an echo-filled guitar, where The Weeknd illustrates the shame of unrequited lust. Yet, at the same time, in consistency with his persona devoid of love and emotion, he has no regrets. “Earned It” is the hit ballad from Fifty Shades of Grey that was released as a single earlier in the year. “In The Night” is arguably the best track on the album, immediately on a parallel instrumentally with Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel.”

The album ends with excellent vocal and lyrical performances on “As You Are”, and “Dark Times” with Ed Sheeran and “Prisoner” with Lana del Rey. “Angel” closes out the album, a ballad that reveals the more emotional side of The Weeknd. In the track, he wishes a former lover true love, with supporting vocals added by Maty Noyes.

As a whole, Beauty Behind The Madness is some of The Weeknd’s best work lyrically in terms of individually composed songs. Though as a whole, the album does not have a clear progression or flow, as each individual mixtape on Trilogy and Kiss Land had a cinematic, storyline-like quality to it. This album has several singles that are huge radio hits, but are not necessarily cohesive with each other, which does not take away from the album as a whole, but makes it meant to be experienced in a different perspective, much like the new pop route that The Weeknd is taking with his music.

The Weeknd will be remembered indefinitely for the success of the hits from the album, increasing his visibility heavily for future releases, in addition to a likely Best R&B or Pop album Grammy nomination in February 2016. Though whether he continues to go down the pop route or decides to return to his alternative routes remains to be seen, we can appreciate this artistically mature release by The Weeknd thus far. Beauty Behind The Madness is undoubtedly a commercial success with quality content.