The Weeknd, you done it again! I think that Thursday remains my personal favorite but this is right up there with House Of Balloons in terms of it being weird but fairly accessible too. And man, the Clams Casino beat on here is crazy. Between “The Fall,” that Big K.R.I.T. remix, and yes, Mac Miller’s “My Team” (and that “Wizard” track we all slept-on), Clams is proving himself to be pretty diverse. Don’t love this one as much as this guy though.
Neither as relentlessly hooky as March’s House of Balloons nor as noisy and hatefuck-filled as August’s Thursday, the third 2011 mixtape from Internet-driven phenom Abel Tesfaye nonetheless continues his mastery of the druggy/lovey/loathing Weeknd thing. So isn’t it about time we just declare this guy a straight R&B act? He’s on Drake’s Take Care; devotees of Trey Songz are listening to him, too. The hipster accusations just don’t hold. And this is his most straightforward take on radio R&B yet.
Echoes of Silence begins with a goofy, gutsy remake of Michael Jackson’s “Dirty Diana,” mysteriously titled “D.D” so as to not spoil that first-listen, “Oh-no-he-didn’t-just-cover-MJ” moment. Replacing the original’s heavy-metal signifying with mournful Requiem for a Dream strings is both inspired and predictable. And by singing the song straight, Tesfaye doesn’t hedge his bets. Instead, he and producer Illangelo boldly stick themselves into a tradition of icky, cruel R&B, taking on Michael Jackson’s most misogynistic song — underlying message: I hate the sort of woman who’d want to sleep with me — and, in the process, basically summing up the entire Weeknd project…
Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader?
Funny that you should label this “transcendent camp”. As I listened to the Big Krit album once more just a couple of days ago, trying very hard to enjoy it as much as nearly everyone else does but failing, it struck me that the problem I have with it is that it’s all very close to kitsch, really. Or rather, that’s what the Krit album is: kitsch. Which is probably why I don’t like it much. Krit’s talent is undeniable, but even when he’s being intimate, there’s this set of huge gestures accompanying it, as if he’s making sure that we’re feeling what we’re supposed to feel. All the effort that goes into creating the impression of a Southern Tradition through various citations and references strike me as kitchy too: too easy, too obvious, always relying on a set of very stable signifiers. The man is a highly skilled manipulator of clichés, but I think he has the potential to be so much more. I get a feeling he’s going for THAT spot, trying to play the rap saviour, and that this, too, is why those who love him love him with such fervor.
Camp, then, seems so much more appealing. The camp tag is also helpful in pinning down the ways in which Weeknd’s music despite its obvious brilliance also seems unfulfilling and immature, I guess. But I’ll take camp for now either way. (Not that, in 2012, one has to choose between Krit and Weeknd, of all the unlikely musical mismatches in the world, but I’m sure you catch my drift…)
Raffo
3 Jan 12 at 11:08 pm
Raffo-
Man, thanks for the comment here. I think your reading of K.R.I.T. is pretty spot-on and it seems like it’s these grand sincere gestures that he’s cribbed from “conscious” hip-hop. That he grafts them with this debt to Southern rap traditions is interesting but also, yeah, just a litte too much at times. Like, “okay dude, cool.” I like K.R.I.T. more and he has some moving songs that rise out of this kitsch, but yeah, I definitely see your point.
Another word for camp of course, would be “insincerity,” and that’s part of Weeknd’s shtick. A line I ended up deleting from my review because it sounded good but didn’t mean much, is that the Weeknd doesn’t take anything seriously except for his music. Like, he’s aiming for a mood and feeling and he’s using over-the-top gestures, scenes, characters, to convey that. He gets there, I think. Do I feel the same thing I do from say, Ryan Leslie? No, but that’s okay!
Brandon
5 Jan 12 at 5:03 am
Brandon,
yeah, insincerity is definitely the issue. And for some reason I feel that the question of sincerity in art/music felt more important in 2011 than in a good while. I think sincerity has been the main problem people have had with G-Side, for instance. Sincerity makes us feel a bit uncomfortable most of the time, and mostly for good reason, since it is so rarely coupled with sufficient style. Yet somehow I think G-Side’s sincerity – the notion that so much is at stake for them personally – is ultimately what makes them special, since it so obviously makes them vulnerable, to themselves and to the cynicism that so often accompanies the act of taste making, or wannabe-taste making. It’s like, if G-Side fail, they’ll have to rap about it, you know? I do think they toned it down a little with iSLAND, and I suspect that is one reason why a lot of people seem to prefer that album.
Krit’s sincerity is of another order, because it feels a bit calculated now, as if he knows that sincerity is necessary if he’s gonna et where he wants to go. Actually, there has always been a lot of sincerity and compassion in his music, but he used to keep it locked to the first person narrator’s perspective. He’s a more well rounded artist now, but at the same time, the platitudes are creeping in there, along with the kings without crowns, lions, lambs, highs, lows, trains, rotating tires, gentle pimping and the emphasis on general countriness. I like Krit the narrator better than Krit the sentimental moralizer. He has a great eye for detail, and you can hear that in his music as well.
Moving back to the Weeknd again, I believe the insincerity thing is what made me realize, in the wake of Form of Flattery, that Weeknd is not so much an imitator of The-Dream as he is his total opposite, artistically, at least in certain ways. To Weeknd, desire is horrible, something you’re trapped in. The world is empty, sincerity is not an option, and style is all that’s left. To The-Dream, desire is a joyous thing that makes everything fun and exciting, even heartbreak. Sex is the most meaningful and uplifting thing in the world to Terius. To Weeknd, sex is obsession and manipulation. Terius finds joy in bondage, Weeknd finds bondage in love. Or something along those lines. On one level it boils down to Terius being older, I guess, but it can’t simply be reduced to that either.
Oscar Wilde once said that it is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid, and I think that dictum kinda applies to The-Dream vs. Weeknd better than to the rap examples. Terius has this amazing instinct coupled with a will to put just about everything out there, and it feels exhilarating, but you also get the feeling that he never (or at least rarely) overthinks things, probably because he’s not a thinker. So his sincerity works for him, it brings out a certain vulnerability that always verges on stupidity I guess, but which also makes his music feel raw and emotional in a way that is rare in the slightly impersonal R&B landscape of today. Weeknd obviously is a thinker, even an overthinker. The insincerity feels necessary with him, though I’m not quite sure what it covers or how far it will get him in the end. We’ll see. It doesn’t feel impersonal though. As you point out, something is obviously very important to Weeknd, and that, in the end, is what makes him stand out.
Raffo
5 Jan 12 at 10:25 am
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