By Robert Moran
Hurry Up Tomorrow: the Weeknd’s death drive goes into overdrive.
The Weeknd, Hurry Up Tomorrow
There was something fittingly shameless in the Weeknd’s unlikely cameo at the Grammys this week, where he abruptly ended his years-long boycott of the awards show he once labelled “corrupt”. Grammys president Harvey Mason Jr might have framed the about-face as evidence of institutional change, but viewers knew the score: the guy’s got a new album to promote, and moral high-horsing’s a sucker’s stance when there’s a global audience up for grabs.
That sort of cynicism has always been part of the Weeknd’s thing, all those nihilistic pop hits – The Hills, Can’t Feel My Face, Blinding Lights – riddled with the lusty shame of celebrity excess, empty sex, drug-fuelled paranoia, and an insouciant death drive. These days, pop stars fixating on the more despicable aspects of their chosen field is basically second-album syndrome, but few have made it their mission to make pop fame, not to mention the creative burden, feel so enduringly repellent as Abel Tesfaye.
Hurry Up Tomorrow – the third and final instalment of his After Hours trilogy, a semi-autobiographical missive from the bowels of lecherous fame and mind-numbing excess that started with 2020’s smash After Hours and continued with 2022’s conceptual Dawn FM (a radio broadcast from purgatory narrated by Jim Carrey) – is no different. The main theme here, as ever, is oblivion.
In interviews, Tesfaye has described the album as a “mental breakdown” spawned following a show in Los Angeles in 2022 in which he lost his voice, “his superpower”. He’s also suggested the album is the swansong of his Weeknd persona, as he moves further into acting – fighting words for anyone who saw his infamous turn as Tedros in The Idol (personally, I enjoyed it).
At almost 1½ hours in length, it took me about three days to get through my first listen. If bloated, it’s telling that the whole thing still feels like a cohesive album rather than a data dump – the mood is pointed, often to a fault.
The 34-year-old superstar has suggested Hurry Up Tomorrow is the swansong to his Weeknd persona.
Opener Wake Me Up, featuring French duo Justice and the most Thriller-y bassline yet from a guy whose entire musical identity is Thriller, opens with the ominous line, “All I have is my legacy”. Baptised in Fear is a sordid electro ballad about drowning in a bathtub, like Whitney, while voices from the grave (presumably fans) urge him to get back to it. On Drive, a plodding song about the freedom of anonymity, he sings “fame is a disease”, in case you didn’t get what we’re up to here.
And yet the album’s middle section – a four-song run including the Max Martin stomp of Open Hearts, the album’s surefire smash; the Cassavetes-referencing Opening Night, about unhealthy ambition and audience demands (“steroids in my lungs, then we’ll start the show”); the self-lacerating Reflections Laughing, which plays like the Weeknd infected by Twin Peaks’ Bob; and the mesmerising Enjoy the Show, where he calls himself a “middle-aged child star”, recoils at his “bloated face” (not for the first time on the album), and threatens to overdose at 34 (that’s his current age) – is captivating.
Elsewhere, Niagara Falls makes evocative use of a chiptuned sample of Jon B and Babyface’s Someone to Love, and the Giorgio Moroder-produced Big Sleep finds cinematic grandeur in its stuttering orchestral fits.
But, mostly, this is pop music at its cartoonishly darkest. Early single Timeless, featuring Playboi Carti and produced with uncharacteristic gloom by Pharrell Williams, might be the first radio hit I’ve ever heard with a hook taunting someone to slit their wrists, while The Abyss, featuring ol’ pal Lana Del Rey, is a moody ballad delivered from the midst of a suicidal freefall (“Will I feel the impact of the ground?” ). It’s a lot, but you’ve gotta respect his commitment to the bit, right to the bitter end.
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