Some compare him to Prince and some believe he is the reincarnation of Michael Jackson. With an album put together as well as this one, I am honestly starting to believe he may be.
Starboy is the third studio album from Canadian singer, songwriter and record producer Abel Tesfaye or better known by his stage pseudonym, The Weeknd.
The highly anticipated album dropped on November 25th under XO and Republic Records and includes 18 songs. In less than 24 hours, Starboy ranked number one in 80 different countries worldwide.
According to XXL Mag, Starboy is on pace to sell between 350,000 and 400,000 equivalent album units and 225,000 and 275,000 traditional album sales. This would very easily place Starboy at number one on the next Billboard 200 chart for the second time in under two years, since his second studio album, Beauty Behind the Madness.
The Weeknd recently won best video for the his single “Starboy” (released September 22nd) at the MTV EMA Awards on Nov. 6.
The Weeknd is such an original artist and cannot be placed under a single genre of music. He embraces this genre diversity on every single track on the album, creating a different vibe to each song.
On songs such as “Rockin’”, “I Feel It Coming”, and “Starboy”, you hear a pop/electronic sound, while on “Party Monster”, or “Sidewalks”, you will hear more of an R&B/hip hop type sound. A lot of the songs even produce sort of an eighties feel to them, while still pertaining to modern music.
This stays true all the way throughout the album, giving the listener a feeling of uncertainty and not knowing what will come next after each song.
The Weeknd chose to feature artists Daft Punk, Lana Del Rey, Future and Kendrick Lamar, proving to be the biggest features of his career.
In an interview with Grammy award winner, record producer and television presenter Zane Lowe, The Weeknd explains that Starboy is a persona or character he has created. He even said he would like to team up with Marvel or DC to create a comic strip of Starboy.
By creating this fictional character in his music, The Weeknd can use him as a metaphor and symbol to express his thoughts and emotions from the fame he has achieved over the course of his career. Starboy is as much of an album as it is a brilliantly thought out story.
Overall, the album is a masterpiece from start to finish. It delivered everything the fans could have asked for, from the vocals and lyrics all the way to the instrumentation and final production of each song.
