Tag Archives: Drake

Sep 3 2011

TheWeeknd//THURSDAY


So this mix tape dropped a couple of thursdays ago now (it’s saturday here in japan), but i’m gonna post it anyways…
Last March, TheWeeknd (either one guy – Abel Tesfaye, or a three man collective including two producers), hailing from T-dot released their debut mix tape HOUSE OF BALLOONS on their website for free… 6 months later, it’s a contender for album of the year, and TheWeeknd is not even signed to a label.
THURSDAY was unleashed in August, also on their website and features 9 more songs to zone out to.
this mix tape also features fellow Toronto star Drake on one cut.
Download the album by clicking on the cover at the top of the post.
Also, here’s a review, and check the links below to learn more about WEEKND…OVOXO

The Weeknd plays a bit like a Bret Easton Ellis novel reads, giving off a feeling that’s somewhere between hopelessness and apathy. Dealing with essentially the same ideas that appeared on their previous album (drug-abuse, jarring lust, lack of conscience, etc.), Thursday almost dares your dark side to indulge in its beautiful bleakness in an “I can’t believe you’re enjoying this, you twisted bastard” sort of way. Look no further than this line from the slow-burning “The Zone”: “So let me sip this slow/I’ll give you what you called for/just let me get in my zone/I’ll be making love to her through you/so let me keep my eyes closed.”
It’s that raw numbness toward such thematic elements that makes this album and its precursor so utterly enthralling. By way of nature, we as human beings tend to be fascinated with the forbidden and the gluttonous. So, when it’s presented in such a pretty, little package, it’s almost impossible to resist. That isn’t to say this album is a complete success; it has its minor pitfalls here and there, but they’re all in places that are obviously trying to compensate for the immense amount of shock value that this album would never have access to when compared to its jaw-dropping, straight-out-of-left-field predecessor, House of Balloons.

For instance, the quality of the production on this album is unmatched compared to that of HoB, paying an inordinate amount of attention to every detail of every bar of every song. Abel Tesfaye (aka The Weeknd) takes a backseat to the production at times, which is a well-intended move that actually works in a few select places but ultimately acts as a curse. One begins to come to the realization that maybe Tesfaye should never take a backseat to anything or anyone. His voice is far too good to be downplayed by musicianship, or anything else for that matter (not even a superb appearance by Weeknd fanboy Drake), and the fact that his voice is not the centerpiece of this album is the only reason Thursday will never be the album its elder brother was.

It’s not all bad news, though, and the album is a success by and large. When the tight production and the sheer talent of Tesfaye meet in the middle (“Life of the Party”, “The Zone”, “Gone”), it creates a new kind of bliss, one that was absent on the previous album. This is probably exactly what they were going for, overall. Rather than cranking out the same album again, they experimented sonically, which is both admirable and somewhat effective. But the absolute best moments on the album remain the moments when The Weeknd stops the show with his impeccable vocals. The amount of control this kid has over his voice is no joke. He has mastered his upper register to the point of perfection; all the way to the point that when he pushes it to the limit, it’s all eyes on Abel, no-holds-barred. When he dabbles in his falsetto during the conclusion of “The Birds Part 1”, he creates possibly the most captivating 35 seconds in music this calendar year.

Yet, despite the ridiculously high highs of this album, it fails to maintain a great pace throughout. It struggles back and forth between “good” and “great,” whereas its foregoer grabbed “great” by the balls on the first track and never let go. Regardless, the album is incredibly solid and even more successful when viewed in perspective. It received an estimated 180,000 downloads on its first day of being posted. Obviously, that is obscene for a self-released effort. It’s far from mere happenstance, though. Whether it’s his being in the right place at the right time (this year did begin as the year of James Blake and his post-dubstep cronies), or whether this kid has the sheer talent to bolster those kind of numbers is yet to be proven, but I submit that it’s a combination of the two, more so the latter. I guess we’ll all find out when the third and final part of the trilogy, Echoes of Silence, drops sometime this fall. Until then, we’ll all stay confusedly mesmerized with the enigmatic music box that is The Weeknd.
TheWeeknd links — website, tumblr, twitter and facebook
here’s my fave track on the project — ROLLING STONE


BONUS!!! download the chopped & screwed mix tape here ——>> CHOPPED UP NOT SLOPPED UP

Apr 14 2011

TheWeeknd – HouseOfBalloons


This is a “tape” I been listening to a lot since it came out late last month.
TheWeeknd.
Who: The 20-year-old singer-songwriter (real name: Abel Tesfaye) from Toronto is on the forefront of an idiosyncratic new cut of R&B. Thanks in part to support from fellow Toronto native Drake, he’s been in heavy rotation since the March 21st release of his mixtape debut House of Balloons.

here’s a review from RollingStone:
Sounds Like: The Weeknd layers House of Balloons with samples (Siouxsie and the Banshees’s 1980 “Happy House,” Beach House‘s 2006 “Master of None”), electronic synths and hip-hop references, accompanied by Frank Ocean from Odd Future and How To Dress Well. There are also traces of The-Dream, Drake and Aaliyah throughout.

Girls, Girls, Girls: With its late-Nineties Timbaland feel (listen to Missy Elliott’s “Friendly Skies”), “What You Need” is the most seductive song on the mixtape. It opens with, “baby, now hold me close” – a line from Aaliyah’s 2001 “Rock the Boat.” The Weeknd proceeds to lure, singing, “I’m going to give you what you feign / I’m the drug in your veins / Just fight through your pain / He’s what you want / I’m what you need.” But on many of Balloons’ tracks The Weeknd entices and explores women, what they bring and what they leave. He sings of women that long to be held and women he longs to hold – but they never seem to be one and the same.

Famous Friends: Chaos erupted on March 6th when Drake tweeted a line from The Weeknd’s “Wicked Game” and linked to the song on his site, October’s Very Own. Ever since, Drake’s been sporadically tweeting lyrics from House of Balloons – which makes sense, since The Weeknd is almost like an emotionally magnified version of Drake. That said, The Weeknd quickly shot down rumors that producer who works close to Drake, Noah “40″ Shebib, worked on House of Balloons: “40 did not produce anything on this tape… Shout outs to 40 though!”, he wrote on Twitter. And although rumors still circulate, The Weeknd is not signed to a label, as he alludes to on the track “Loft Music”: “I’m raw motherfucker, I’m raw,” he sings.

You can download the mixtape/album by clicking on the album pic above, or visit his site.
The-Weeknd.com
Twitter.com/theweeknd
Facebook.com/theweeknd
right now The Morning gets the most spins for me

and another review:
The Weeknd arrived as if out of nowhere, with no tags or bio attached to them–a mysterious R&B group that we knew were from Toronto and, judging from Abel Tesfaye’s self-detesting, melancholic lyrics, we could assume were getting over recent heartbreak. Thanks to Toronto’s biggest sensation, Drake, who posted a few of their tracks on his OVO blog, the Weeknd exploded into the blogosphere, garnering the respect of self-indulgent hipsters, mainstream R&B fanatics, and indie kids alike. It’s rare for the r&b genre to be labeled unique or unorthodox these days, unless you’re How to Dress Well, but with the Weeknd’s debut mixtape, House of Balloons, they bring to the table the most interesting, depressing, and drug-infested R&B record in years.

The Weeknd’s originality reaches far beyond the nature of their dope, electronically infused, bass-heavy beats, merging the hip-hop genre with the current sampling fixation that so many underground DJ’s employ these days, whether Hard Mix or James Blake. The spaced-out, heavy synthesizer resonance that Drake fixates on is there as well on tracks like “The Party and the After Party” and “The Morning”. Though the production from Don McKinney and Illangelo is sufficient enough to keep House of Balloons on repeat, it’s Tesfaye’s lyrics that help separate the Weeknd from other contemporary R&B outfits. The drug discourse is ample, with opener “High For This” introducing the party lifestyle Tesfaye partakes in and “House of Balloons – Glass Table Girls” referencing cocaine on oh so many occasions. What makes The Weeknd so painstakingly real are the issues Tesfaye is discussing here. He’s not praising drugs like so many other artists in his genre do; he’s telling us the opposing side that no one dares mention: the overdoses, the cravings, the gloomy emptiness that ensues.

Halfway through House of Balloons sits what most are referring to as the album’s centerpiece, the hard-hitting “Wicked Games”; this song alone is worthy of making you feel remorseful. “Bring the love baby, I can bring the shame/Bring the drugs baby, I can bring the pain.” Tesfaye is aching for love here, even if it isn’t real love, and that takes a lot of guts to proclaim for someone who’s so new to the music scene. In an R&B market that is overly generic and dull, The Weeknd have brought something much more, something much needed: something real. Kudos.

Jun 21 2010

TIMBALAND

A while back, I had to give props to DeVante Swing of Jodeci fame.
Another of my alltime fave producers is TIMBALAND.

That song is the Gin & Juice remix from late 95. One of Timbo’s first major appearances, and one of his classics IMO. Song also features the Dearly Departed STATIC MAJOR
While Devante, and cats like Teddy Riley amazed me with their musical abilities, it was Tim who impressed me with his music sensibilities. He, like many a producer in the hiphop game lacked formal musical education or skills, he couldn’t play an instrument. This in itself was an inspiration…back in 97…first time i ever toyed around with making beats, it was because I felt that if Tim can do it, I can do it. Now of course, I never claimed I was Timbo, but I loved the crazy drum patterns which were beyond original at the time. There was no other producer in hiphop or r&b approaching the level of what he was doing. Each and every time Timbo released another smash, that’s the sound the industry would try to emulate. And while hardcore “urban” music heads, would disagree with the direction his music has taken in recent years (POP)…the industry is still following. From Jodeci to Aaliyah, Playa, Ginuwine, Missy, Beck, Janet, Limp Bizkit, Justim Timberlake, Nelly Furtado, Keri Hilson, Eminem, Drake, Miley Cyrus, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Nas and pretty much a who’s who in the music business….Timbo is most definitely The King.