My Dear Melancholy: Album Review
The Weeknd, a name that already implies fun, partying and full of surprises. What more could it mean? Abel Tesfaye, who is from Toronto, Canada has a different approach on why this became his stage name. He states “ I left home when I was about 17 dropped out of high school…. we grabbed our mattresses from our parents threw it in our friends shitty van and left one weekend and never came back home.” He got his inspiration from here and made The Weeknd his stage name.
Talking about inspiration, his early musical influences were Ethiopian singers because that is what he grew up listening to. His later music influences is said to be the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. He uses his Ethiopian background in many songs and it is exactly what makes his music stand out from others. His major hits are “Can’t feel my face” and “The Hills”. Both of those songs are different genres. One Disco-pop and the other alternative R&B. I love how his music is spread into different genres because it gives you a different feel or vibe every time you hear his songs.
This album however is not one of his fun, upbeat songs. It is about being heartbroken, sad, lost and lonely. The album’s genre is R&B/Soul and Electropop.
His vocals are stunningly represented in the song “Call Out My Name”
You can really hear and feel his pain. The sorrow and how he puts his whole heart in one lyric, really makes you want to sing along and share the pain with him, even if you have never been heartbroken from a relationship. In this lyric, from “Call Out My Name”, “you gave me comfort..but falling for you was my mistake”. The song is so descriptively written that one does not need to hear the song just to feel the pain. But hearing the song will bring you in a different dimension. The beats in the background are leading up to the main chorus part which is when he says “call out my name”. This, I would say is the most intense/highlighted part of the song. The subtle guitar, the hints of a piano in the beginning all leading to the biggest moment of the song is complimented by the big, loud drums, guitar, and piano that follow the tone of his voice. The instruments get louder when he does and gets quieter, when he is too. All those components of that one line makes you feel so powerful. It feels almost as if when the dj is about to drop the beat.
The song “Try Me” is not brought out with such sadness like in “Call Out My Name” but still makes you want to bump it loud in your car like a hip hop song. It has a little bit of electro beats that fall into the sound of trap music. It still gives you that same vibe of feeling heartbroken but from a different approach. He is not really yearning for the persons love in this one but rather, telling the ex try me which is the title of the song. The song feels like a sad lit song, as I would best describe it. Just listening to the beat will make you forget that it was even aimed at being a sad song.
All of his songs from My Dear Melancholy, “Call Out My Name”,
“Try Me”, “Wasted Times”, “I Was Never There” (featuring Gesaffelstein), and “Privilege” and “Hurt You” are all songs that you must listen to. This album gets a 10/10 from me. Once I started listening to it, I was hooked and I encourage you to listen to it as well. I love the beats and I really do not ever pay attention to the lyrics but this song changed that. It makes you want to hear and say the lyrics. My dear Weekend, this has become my new favorite album.