With the release of his upcoming album, Hurry Up Tomorrow, The Weeknd looks to complete a trilogy of projects begun by his 2020 album, After Hours, and continued by its 20022 followup, Dawn FM. Trilogies are something of a recurring theme for the Canadian superstar, as it was his trio of haunting mixtapes (2011’s House Of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence) that first put him on the map as a moody, mysterious musician with a multilayered approach to songwriting. He’s expanded on that reputation ever since, transforming so completely for each new release, that he’s become music’s biggest concept artist.
In starting his current, ongoing trilogy, The Weeknd not only took a big musical swing in a new sonic direction, but he also crafted a bizarre character to suit the glittering, synth-heavy sounds. While he kicked off the rollout for After Hours by introducing his red-and-black suit and retro stunna shades in the video for “Heartless,” it was the follow-up video for “Blinding Lights” that truly set the tone for the After Hours era; the bloodied protagonist, wandering the Las Vegas strip to the pulse-pounding sounds of synthwave created the unsettling contrast that would define that album’s messaging.
With each new visual from the album, that unsettling vibe got more and more horrific. The After Hours short film found Red being compelled by unseen forces, while the gory “In Your Eyes” video subverted its own horror-thriller tropes, ending with Red decapitated by the woman he appeared to be stalking throughout the clip. By the time of the “Too Late” video, Red’s head had been transplanted onto a new body by plastic surgery addicts in Beverly Hills, setting up the eye-popping, puffy-faced version from the “Save Your Tears” video, which ended on yet another ambivalent note, with Red finally getting something akin to closure.
Like the preceding era, the change over to Dawn FM happened gradually. The “Take My Breath” video carried over some of its predecessor’s attributes, but now, Abel’s suit was black-on-black, the violence was toned down and more psychosexual. If the After Hours visuals were concerned with the violence inherent in the pursuit of the hedonistic lifestyle enjoyed by Red, then Dawn FM‘s visuals looked at the sexual and social repercussions thereof. Black finds himself trapped in a soul-stealing ritual in the video for “Sacrifice,” ending the video with his youth stripped away.
In “Gasoline,” he’s haunted by ghoulish specters and a youthful doppelgänger that taunt him at what appears to be a crowded nightclub. The elder Black returns to get revenge on his double in “Out Of Time,” only to find himself losing his identity even further in the voyeuristic video for “Is There Someone Else?” Musically, Dawn FM slides all over the dial, from easy listening to pulsating EDM. In describing the album’s themes, he likened it to “being stuck in traffic waiting to reach the light at the end of the tunnel” in a state of purgatory after death.
If anything, “Dancing In The Flames,” the first video from Hurry Up Tomorrow reinforces and doubles down on that idea, featuring yet another Weeknd character getting into a violent encounter, this time, ending up on the wrong side of a face-off with a semi truck. His latest character ends up wandering a ghostly wasteland and seeing a light that could represent the afterlife. Fans have speculated that if Dawn FM was about Purgatory and that made After Hours about Hell, then perhaps Hurry Up Tomorrow will find Abel entering the Pearly Gates.
Or not. If anything, the Toronto native is famous for his swerves, for offering up the unexpected, and for crafting projects that defy expectations. While it could be argued that he might be getting overly reliant on these convoluted narratives to tell his stories — even on stage, he’s been known to incorporate characters, like his The Idol antihero Tedros, or whatever the knockoff MF DOOM thing he did in Spain was supposed to be — the truth is, this constant reinvention has been a huge part of building his popularity to what it is today. By letting his imagination run wild, he keeps finding fertile new veins of creativity that keep him at the top of his craft.