An artistic piece of work always sparks a wave of creativity within me. ‘If you ain’t XO then you gotta go’,The Weeknd sings, or as we (the fans) call him by his first name, Abel. If we are acquainted in some way, personally or through any of my social media handles two things would have happened to you:
- Over time you would have become a fan of Abel’s work too….
- You would have thought this girl must be obsessed and for what? For someone who doesn’t even know she exists. Then you would still become a fan too…
Why Abel? Why XO? I think writing this review about him sums it up. Abel is a visionary, he embraces diversity ever so gloriously on each track of his latest album ‘STARBOY. In less than 24 hours his album hit number 1 in over 80 countries worldwide, Nigeria included. Although he still hasn’t acknowledged the claims that WizKid used the name ‘Starboy’ first, does it really matter? I’ve asked this before “is there such a thing….originality? Who makes an idea original? what and who do we consider original or authentic? Truth? Borrowed truths? What is original and who holds the right to decide what is and isn’t original? It is impossible, there is no such thing as a new idea.
Now this is the hard part, I would have loved to review each track on Starboy, it was difficult not to. I’ll go more indepth reviewing the album as a whole and the characters in song of his songs and hopefully you’ll also see why I would have loved to review each track the album.
Starboy is experimentally genius, at first I couldn’t decide if I liked the album because I’m a huge fan of Abel’s work and so naturally I would assume it was good, or is it really that great. Later on I began to appreciate the arctic’s risk he took with this album and I fell in love with the entire production. The instrumentals on its own is a work of genius, so props to all those involved. Each song feels unique and carries a different vibe, and you can sense the high influence of David Bowie, Prince and Daft Punk in general throughout the album. When he mentioned Prince being a huge influence on the album I think he was talking about the genre diversity in terms of combining sound you wouldn’t usually think would fit well together. David Bowie’s influence could be the Starboy persona Abel puts up, because arguably Bowie started the whole concept of having a character/persona with ‘Ziggy Stardust’. Let’s face Prince
and Bowie had a huge part that inspired this album and so all this ⚡✝ ⚡ makes sense.
It’s an usual album, quite different from The Weeknd we knew from Trilogy. His first album in 2012, Trilogy was a combination of his three mixtapes from the very beginning of his career in 2010. He would post songs on Youtube under the name xoxxxoooxo and although The Weeknd then is different from the Starboy now, you tend to feel the same character for his first three mix tapes. For example earlier in his career, his records painted his dark charette, melancholy, disloyal mess, caught up in consumption freak, a prisoner to his lifestyle. These themes are still recurrent in Starboy, so this new character,
similar to the one from Trilogy seems to be feeling something he told himself before, something he told us in earlier songs like ‘Rolling Stone’. He’s feeling isolated and compassionate, in a very similar way to the character in ‘Valerie’, but different from all the other songs throughout his career.
Personally one of my favorite songs from Starboy is ‘Die for you’, he has always lacked love and romance in his world of drugs, lust and consumption. However, the concept of the song is quite the opposite, it’s powerful and the melody is so alluring, love seems to have caught up with him, after all he’s human. F.Y.I Prince had a song called ‘I Would Die For You’ from his Purple Rain Album, and you can hear the influence from that on Abel’s track as well. Abel’s flow is astonishing, his soulful vocals display passion as he pours his heart into signing, need I mention the lyrics, fantastic! In his latest album Abel is fond of intentionally making us feel bad about what we have as he brags about his materialistic lifestyle, money, cars and women, but ‘Die For You’ represents a side of him from the past as he expresses that even with all the money and girls, he still can’t afford to love.
Starboy represent vulnerability, risk and diversity. From soulful blues to groovy dance songs, each song with a different style, Abel’s artistic approach to Starboy is so creative. I feel Starboy is a metaphor and symbol he uses to articulate and express his opinions and emotions about the fame he’s achieved. He creates this fictitious character made entirely from his imagination who is intentionally braggadocio and rude. I see Starboy as the dark side to all of us, the silent parts of our thoughts we refuse to show anybody else. We all have our inner Starboy Perona.
His cinematic album is packed with emotion, vibe, sentiment, heart and soul. The songwriting is seductive and mesmerizing. He definitely took to an entirely different territory and direction with this piece of claustrophobic work filled with darkness, soul and meaningful undertones. There’s just something schizophrenic about the character and sound on the album, from it’s melodic rhythms and powerful slow ballads of heartbreak, to upbeat and groovy robotic pop sounds, to even that one song that almost sounds rock, ‘False Alarm’. He also experiments with robotic auto tune cleverly, not in an overused T-pain type of way clearly, but in a more subtle seductive way. A lot of the songs also reminiscent the 80’s with a modern twist, think of the guitar riffs, synthesizers and chords when you listen to ‘I Feel It Coming’. His creative appeal, ethic and approach on the album resembles pure genius.
It’s not just the sound, but the visuals too, they are so mesmerising and I feel every track on it’s own has its own sound. If you are thinking of seeing him perform live, totally worth it! To know more about Abel’s point of view, his carer, work ethic and even initial fear of performing I recommend watching his first exclusive video interview with Zane Lowe. How times flies, I remember when Zane opened for Abel’s Kiss Land tour in Manchester back in November 2013. Yes I remember it so vividly because it was the first time I saw him perform live. This Ethiopian blessing (yes Abel is from Africa) is exactly what pop culture and the world of modern day music desperately needed so thank you Abel !
