In Defence of Kiss Land

Kiss Land is The Weeknd’s best album. Here’s why.

There’s that long-running joke about people wishing Abel Tesfaye aka The Weeknd would go back to his nihilistic, drug-induced, saccharine R&B sound. I get it. His music is a hedonistic dream that, as a listener, you can dip in and out as you please without committing to anything. But many still overlook Kiss Land, Tesfaye’s dark but brilliant studio debut, despite its undeniable greatness.

I still remember listening to the album for the very first time; it was nothing short of exhilarating and petrifying. I knew every word by heart in no time. Five years on, and something new still emerges with every listen, as if the album is growing up with me.

Critics have generally been less-than kind towards Kiss Land. Both Rolling Stone and The Guardian gave it 2/5 stars, and most of the songs from the album have now been pushed aside in favour of his more popular tracks like Starboy and The Hills. It’s also important to acknowledge The Weeknd’s mind-numbingly good mixtapes (House of Balloons, Echoes of Silence) which precede Kiss Land — The Weeknd was one of the first artists to form a solid brand and build a dedicated fanbase through Tumblr.

But Tesfaye knew exactly what he was doing by abandoning singing about the internet, partying and getting high. He set out to disappoint. And it worked.

When I think about Kiss Land, I think about a terrifying place. — The Weeknd, Complex, 2013

Kiss Land is a well-crafted story of dispersion and isolation. Through his lyrics, Tesfaye verbalises some of the most personal and intricate feelings regarding love, fear and growing up. The track The Town is partly an ode to Toronto and partly a story of a relationship he hasn’t let go of yet. It’s a sincere portrayal of the ways in which heartbreak forever ties one to a particular place:

You made me feel so good
Before I left, on the road
And you deserve your name on a crown, on a throne

The album is everything its title isn’t — enigmatic, lucrative, ominous. The album’s title track Kiss Land starts off with alarms and screams, it prioritises fear instead of sweetness and safety. The juxtaposition of the title and the aesthetic works, and you’re transported into the darkest places of Tesfaye’s mind. The track slows halfway through as Tesfaye reflects on his newfound fame:

I got a brand new place, I think I’ve seen it twice all year
I can’t remember how it looks inside
So you can picture how my life’s been

The album is scary and bold, but above all, it established The Weeknd as something more than a Tumblr artist. Since then, Tesfaye’s falsetto and alternative R&B (for which we still need a proper term) have elevated him into stardom beyond his hometown Toronto and into sold-out arenas worldwide. And rightly so, as his sound has inspired the likes of PARTYNEXTDOOR, Bryson Tiller and numerous other artists seeking to explore and modernise the R&B genre. But while Tesfaye’s sophomore studio album Beauty Behind the Madness was an unabashed and (very) successful push towards fame, it’s Kiss Land that truly showcases his authenticity and storytelling abilities.

In a way, Kiss Land is still the sound The Weeknd tends to revisit. Privilege, from his latest EP My Dear Melancholy, (2018) could easily blend in with the rest of Kiss Land despite the 5-year difference. “But I’ma drink the pain away, I’ll be back to my old ways, and I got two red pills to take the blues away” exhibits the same kind of gloomy, often harrowing world in which Tesfaye finds himself time and time again. As Emma Garland eloquently put it: “he’s basically Bojack Horseman with a great voice.”

There’s still a lot of learning for Tesfaye to do in terms of fetishising of women, anti-gay rhetoric and glorifying of drug abuse. Despite promising “no more daytime music” in a recent tweet, his new record Lost In The Fire seems to be more of a step back than a way forward. But while Kiss Land is by no means a perfect record, its themes of isolation, diaspora, and heartbreak are far more candid than most of the stuff being churned out by people whose names start with “Lil”.