This year started off great for music with one of the biggest artists in the world releasing his final album. “Hurry Up Tomorrow” is Abel Tesfaye’s last album under his more well-known name, The Weeknd.
Known for his revolutionary RnB and ’80s style electronic music, The Weeknd has established himself as one of the greatest artists of the 2010s and 2020s. After his release of the 2020 album “After Hours” and the song “Blinding Lights” with over 4.5 billion streams, he even made an appearance as the headliner of the Super Bowl halftime show in 2021. Coming off his last album “Dawn FM,” he continued releasing hit singles, one of which being for his latest album being “Timeless” with Playboi Carti. This led to his album being even more anticipated as “Timeless” raked in over 500 million streams in only a couple months.
The Weeknd has always been known for cinematic soundscapes with synth and electronic sounds dominating his music. This continues on this tracklist starting with the intro track “Wake Me Up” featuring Justice, with an upbeat chorus and themes about feeling like he is dreaming or delusional about being in love.
The next song, “Cry For Me,” heads in a more somber route content-wise, talking about how he cried over a relationship and how he hopes that she felt similar in the end. It features hard-hitting drums and a darker sound in the beginning and evolves into a higher pitched lighter song throughout the runtime.
Another standout song and one of my favorite songs from the album, “Reflections Laughing” featuring Travis Scott, talks about how he feels doubted by others. It has a slow start with cinematic synths and a raspy guitar. All of it leads to a phone ringing and a voicemail from a woman who is concerned about him and wants him to come home from a tour in Dallas. Then it leads into Travis Scott’s feature with pitched down vocals and a slowed beat with more guitar sounds. Leading into the next song “Enjoy the Show” featuring Future, it has an incredible soul sample and leads away from the electronic sound into a more light soundscape. Future had a very unique feature with him singing for most of it and although it is not his strong suit, I still think he had the best feature on the album.
Continuing the lighthearted soul samples, “I Can’t Wait to Get There” is another break from heavy themes with The Weeknd singing about how he won’t sell his soul even though his enemies try to paint him as a villain. Next is the aforementioned “Timeless,” featuring Playboi Carti, is by far the most popular song on the album so far even after the whole release. It features an infectious electronic beat and chorus with a dynamic feature from Playboi Carti. Carti uses multiple tones of voice that change throughout the song to adapt to the beat and to what he is saying.
Though the majority of this album is fantastic, that doesn’t mean all of the songs are hits and my least favorite is “Big Sleep” featuring Giorgio Moroder. The repetitive chorus and lacking production lead to a more boring song that doesn’t really have anything that other songs on the album don’t already have. It talks about The Weeknd’s fascination with death and the afterlife, which is a core theme of the album already, so doubling down isn’t really necessary.
The last song I want to talk about is “Take Me Back To LA,” which features The Weeknd reminiscing about his past and when he could still feel deeper emotions than he can now. This paired with another dynamic synth production and a great singing performance lead to another fantastic song.
Overall, the main themes of “Hurry Up Tomorrow” being about death, the past, and self discovery is a fitting end for the last album under The Weeknd name. Although it is unknown what Tesfaye plans to do next, his career as The Weeknd certainly won’t be forgotten anytime soon.
Even though I will not come back to every song on here, I can absolutely appreciate each individual track and you can tell how much love and care went into making this album. From the production, to the features, to the performances, nearly everything on this album was close to perfect. Even though it is too early to call, I believe this album will be in album of the year discussions when the time comes. I would definitely give this album a 5/5 and look forward to whatever comes next from Abel Tesfaye.
