The Weeknd’s New Era Will Be More Epic Than You Think

A surreal – and disturbing – series of dreamlike images that summarize the last four years of his musical career, through some symbols: from the red suit of the “Blinding lights” era to the leather jacket of “Dawn FM”, passing through the mask worn in the “After hours til the dawn” tour. In the background, confused music resounds, in which the sound of the synthesizers is confused with the artist’s vocalizations. And at the end, a character appears who looks like the singer as a child, surrounded by a horde of mannequins. This is how The Weeknd announced, with a mysterious and enigmatic video published on Instagram, the imminent beginning of the new era of his discography, continuing to tickle the curiosity of fans a few hours after the announcement of the

show that will see him return to perform live on September 7th, on the stage of the Estádio do Morumbi in San Paolo, Brazil. “There are three chapters in this story“, he simply wrote in the caption that accompanies the clip, which is over a minute long, fueling the hype surrounding his return, one of the most anticipated of the year. Perhaps it is just an impression linked to the ability of Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, this is the real name of the Canadian artist (who entered the Guinness Book of Records last year for becoming the first musician to reach 100 million monthly streams, with all due respect to Taylor Swift), to generate very high expectations: but The Weeknd’s new era is shaping up to be more epic than you might think.

And then talking about a return is also misleading, because to tell the truth The Weeknd never left. Yes, of course, she hasn’t released an album in two years (the last one, “Dawn FM”, came out in January 2022), but in these thirty months the Canadian pop star has continued to keep herself active in the recording industry thanks to singles like “Double Fantasy” and “Popular” (from the soundtrack of the series “The Idol”, an operation that turned out to be a failure but which for better or worse did not go unnoticed, despite the early closure) and feats like those with Travis Scott on “K-Pop” (contained in “Utopia”, one of the most streamed albums in the world of last year) or Future and Metro Boomin on “Young metro” and “We still don’t trust you”.

And then there was the tour.”After hours til dawn“, which consecrated him not only as a recording phenomenon – he has been in the weekly chart of the 200 most listened to artists on Spotify for 144 weeks, that is, more than 1000 days, or 3 years: for the record, he spent most of his time in the top ten – but also as a great performer, thanks to a colossal production that toured the world for a year and a half, collecting a total of 64 shows, making 3.2 million spectators dance and grossing 360.2 million dollars at the box office (in Milan more or less a year ago at this time, Abel Makkonen Tesfaye’s spaceship was preparing to land at the Snai La Maura Hippodrome, welcomed by 160 thousand fans).

Everything is beautiful, grand, fantastic. But what The Weeknd is preparing to reveal to the world could be even more titanicThe new album, which could be announced next Monday in conjunction with the opening of pre-sales for tickets for the concert in Sao Paulo, should represent the final destination of the journey undertaken by The Weeknd in 2020 with “After Hours”, continued two years ago with “Dawn FM”: “Imagine the album as if the listener is dead and everyone is stuck in this purgatorial state that I’ve always imagined as being stuck in traffic waiting to get to the light at the end of the tunnel. And while you’re stuck in traffic, there’s a radio station playing in your car, with a host guiding you toward the light and helping you get to the other side,” Abel Tesfaye said of the 2022 album. The album ended with a track, “Phantom Regret by Jim,” performed by Jim Carey, who said at the end: “You must be Heaven to see Heaven. May peace be with you“.

On the poster of the show at the Estádio do Morumbi in São Paulo – “A production never seen before”, assure sources close to the star – The Weeknd is pictured from behind as he heads towards what appears to be the exit of a temple, ready to be bathed in a dazzling light. He quotes the saint: “Present humanity is fragile, perishable and weak, but to enter into eternal life bodies must be transformed.“. Whatever that means, he’s already won.