Don't You Cry for Me
After Hours
404,000 individual units to top the Billboard 200 on its first week, and the fourth album of Abel Tesfaye, artistically known as "The Weeknd". Intentionally spelled without the E because the band "the weekend". After Hours comes after his somewhat panned "Starboy", which noticeably a few fans felt was dull and too influenced by the mainstream charts. I disagree, but that is another story for another day. After Hours feels like a fair mixture of old and new Weeknd. It has all the foreboding, drug addicted pains of his previous work. Several songs show more of his RNB influence and his old style vocal distortions return in many of the songs. Nevertheless, it is definitely fit for new pop loving fans he obtained from other singles, with songs like In Your Eyes and Blinding Lights.
My review is sans the deluxe edition version of After Hours. I like the way the album is conceptually without these added tracks, where it seems honestly a bit more obvious to me why they were cut b-sides. I personally feel like the album flows as a concept. There are some tracks able to stand out alone but this album is a much better listen together as a cohesive story. And that is so damn rare today. So I admire that a LOT.
Alone Again
I don't know if I can be alone again
A solemn short introduction track, I actually really like the way it opens the album. It makes for the mental concept in my mind of...losing that someone that kept him together, that special person, who made him want to be a different man - a better one. And now he begins falling apart, and when he falls apart he turns to his old vices, and his old vices lead him nowhere good. Distortion heavy but it weirdly added to the emotion for me as the music gets stronger as the track goes on.
Too Late
We're in Hell, it's disguised as a paradise with flashing lights
Too Late carries on from Alone Again, discussing his mistakes and it being too late to save his soul. Conceptually, it seems a lack of belief in his "salvation" and being able to be "Saved" comes up a lot as a topic. This song is a bit more forgettable in a stand alone sense but I think it carries on the story well.
Hardest To Love
I've been the hardest to love
This is my least favorite track, for one particular reason. The instrumental goes faster than the actual singing of his voice. And the difference between his singing melody and the musical melody drives me up a wall. Gives me a headache. On top of it, I feel like Too Late covered this quite well so I do not think this track "had" to be there. It doesn't really melodically go with the rest of the album in my mind. It just seems like a weird outlier that wasn't needed and is like nails on a chalkboard for me.
Scared to Live
Refuse to be the one who taints your heart
Scared to Live is a ballad RnB style track and really shows a softer side to the Weeknd and the album as a whole. Espeically when conceptually from here we start into the deepest depths of darkness. Like he felt because he is just so...bad. So unsaveable. That he must let her go and he wants her to live again. Go on without him...but without her, he descents into the worst parts of himself.
So after scared to live I'd say we enter part 2: Lost. The next two songs have a reflection into his past, his vices, where he came from.
Snowchild
Not to mislead turn my nightmares into big dreams
He reflects on coming from nothing and turning his darkest hours into "big dreams" per say his success in music. This song reminds me of many of Trilogy's sort of tracks which also feels so fitting. The title is a reference to his drug abuse past. He reflects on making it big now and being within hollywood. On my first listen this song REALLY stood out to me. The reflection. Made me think a bit of J. Cole's sort lyricism to be honest. XD
Escape from LA
Gave you everything you wanted
But none of that matters to you, oh-oh
Escape from LA brings his past toward the present now, as he's "fucking girls in the studio" and how all these LA girls look the same, getting that same work down, same old stuff. Tired of the fakeness and lack of authenticity. He appears to be trying to fill the void of her, but in the end nothing he did was enough.
Part 3: the descent into losing your shit in Vegas, as described by Abel himself.
Heartless
Never need a bitch, I'm what a bitch need
Tryna find the one that can fix me
I love this line because it is so contradictory. He is what they need yet the second line quickly implies he quite frankly DOES need them, he wants someone to fix his brokenness, his lost state. He's looking for a girl to make him better. But as heartless goes...he goes back to his old ways. I honestly love the perspective of this song. It feels like an intense self-loathing or an "I'm the bitch" kinda song but the bridge shows this vulnerability, that he is not, in fact, heartless as he makes it seem.
Faith
I feel everything from my body to my soul
Faith is my favorite song from this album hands down. The depth, the vulnerability, the blunt honesty, the production. It is more than just a song of drugs. It is what drives the individual to do the drugs. The loneliness, the hopelessness, and the loss. You can just feel the emptiness.
Blinding Lights
The city's cold and empty
If you haven't heard Blinding Lights, you probably don't turn on a hit radio station. In retrospect with the whole album, this song becomes quite sad. It comes after Faith, which is so obviously of drugs and relapsing drugs in sadness, and now as he is coming down he wishes she was with him. The city, the drugs, offer him little consolation. It is a reminder as well that substances do not cure things. In the end, you come down, and you still are faced with the emotions.
In Your Eyes
You always try to hide the pain
I always felt perhaps In Your Eyes is actually referencing her knowledge of his addiction, his relapse, and trying to hide how much it hurt her. He can tell, he feels shame for hurting her, he can see it in her eyes. And he doesn't let her concealment define her, as the same time it is sad because of course addiction has a hold on him. He remembers what he had and how he hurt her.
Save Your Tears
Yeah, I broke your heart like someone did to mine
And now you won't love me for a second time
See a reference back to scared to live, how he let her go and felt it better for her. But he sees her now and regrets letting her go and pushing her away. We get a perspective from In Your Eyes that she was actually someone there for him, who forgave him and let it go. But he couldn't stand being the reason she kept breaking so he felt he MUST let her go. but then he melted down without her. now he cannot stand to see her with someone else.
Repeat After Me (Interlude)
You don't love him, you're just fucking
You're just fucking, it means nothing to me
Most interludes do not have the depth of this. XD Nevertheless, Repeat After Me definitely shows the stronger underlying feeling within Save Your Tears of hating her with someone else. Imagining that in fact, she's thinking of him instead. Trying to be callous. "It means nothing to me". He says it so strongly, you'd think...he's trying to convince himself.
After Hours
Girl, I felt so alone inside of this crowded room
He now acknowledges it does matter to him - she matters to him. He remembers how she always cared for him and begs her to entrust him with her heart again. He makes various promises of never hurting her again. Never leaving or breaking her heart again. All the vices he tried to use to compensate for his loss of her, he now admits were foolish.
Until I Bleed Out
I wanna cut you outta my dreams
It is strange to enjoy an album closer as much as I enjoyed this album closer. It is short, simple, but I feel it leaves the bittersweet open ending this album needed. It was not really resolved. He still has a problem. He is still rattling his brain. He wishes he could stop using. He wishes he could cut her out of his mind completely. He needs to "Bleed it out." And I think it easily takes you back to the front...as a reminder, this is like ripping parts of yourself out and throwing yourself out there at your absolute worst spot. Being alone, being lost, drugged, broken, heartless, angry, depressed. It is everything at once. It is a rollercoaster that for healing may be repeated over and over regularly.
This album deserved grammy nominations, at the very least. It is criminal the lack of respect the association gave it. This album is a stand out even for him. As I revisit his old tracks, this album still heavily stands out to me. It has a depth to it, a deep emotional mark. It isn't just drugs and bitches. I feel like in many ways, this is a description of why there's consistently drugs and bitches. It is well written, cohesive, and it is just hard to find an album you can put in your cd player and want to hear the whole thing for the story outline of it in today's streaming era that focuses on a few hits and some filler. He is an artist in a world of indulgence.
