And then the song moves on to, yes, a Justin Bieber allusion: “Guess I was just another pit stop / Til you made up your mind / You just wasted my time.” (Unfortunately, it would seem the song “went to the presses” before the Weeknd had time to work in a reference to Bieber’s apparent new flame, the delightfully named Baskin Champion.) “I said I didn’t feel nothing baby, but I lied / I almost cut a piece of myself for your life,” he sings. But then in the second verse we get what would seem to be confirmation, an apparent reference to Gomez’s recent kidney transplant. This one begins with the lines: “We found each other / I helped you out of a broken place / You gave me comfort / But falling for you was my mistake.” Probably about Gomez? Seems to be pretty standard Dwelling on an Ex fare. Let’s start with the opening track, “Call Out My Name” (which is going to take us a few days to not initially scan as “Call Me by Your Name” when we see the name). Prior to dating Gomez, he dated supermodel Bella Hadid for more than a year.

(The titles themselves elucidate the mood here: “Wasted Times,” “Hurt You,” you get the drift.) And in the grand tradition of Confessional Albums from Famous Pop Stars, a great deal of the immediate commentary has been related to deductions as to who these songs are about.įor those who need a quick Weeknd-dating-history refresher, he was involved with Selena Gomez for about 10 months before they split in October 2017 (she would later reunite with her ex Justin Bieber).

The digital art is moodily shot, the 28-year-old’s filtered face obscured in darkness, and, in tandem with the title, seemed to signal that this was going to be a bit of a grim affair.Īnd indeed, now that the record is out in the world, it’s confirmed: there is no full-throttle shimmering buoyant “Starboy” amongst these songs.

Titled My Dear Melancholy, the six-track set is the first album from the artist since 2016’s massively successful Starboy (he was also featured on this year’s Black Panther soundtrack). The Weeknd, as the Internet likes to call it, “pulled a Beyoncé” this week, as he dropped a surprise album with only a cryptic Instagram tease preceding it.

The weeknd new album 2017