My girlfriend listens to a lot of pop music and The Weeknd is the most enjoyable of the bunch for me. It’s fun music to cook to, and the new album sounds like it will be just as good for background listening.
I liked the early techno-funk inspired jams and love Prince but modern over-polished R&B bores the fuck out of me.
I’ll give it a listen-through, even if people calling it Weeknd’s “Thriller” risks an anti-hype backlash in my brain 
Much prefer the sort of stuff OPN was doing on albums like replica and R plus 7. Loved his work with ANOHNI and Hudson Mowhawke on Hopelessness, that’s probably my favourite album from this century.
That being said, this is a very good album for what it is, which is hyper commercial pop music. Not really my scene, but it’s not offensive to me.
4 Likes
Similar to Random Access Memories, I respect the craft of the writers and producers and I’ll probably hear it from external sources for the rest of my existence (movies, background tv shows, muzak playing in malls…) but won’t intentionally listen to the album because of so much else that scratches my brain-pan differently.
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So, I like it! I’m listening right now and find that the production, the flavor and performance are quite good!
A bit of background, I’m not very young and my then 10 years old daughter successfully destroyed my aversion for modern pop music, using repetition and persistence - I had to start liking Ava Max, Ariana Grande and more
I actually never knew the old Weeknd (I live under a rock it seems), and she made me discover Blinding Lights, and I loved it for the vibes of my childhood in the 80s, with a modern twist and a talent in singing. I loved Save you Tears as well, not much the rest of the album.
So now I’m listening to the new album and respect! I don’t love the whole of it equally but some, and find it really well done. A good mix of vintage and modern.
4 Likes