Hey Baby I've Been Thinking You Should Be Mine for the Weeknd
The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights" is the new No. 1 song on Billboard's Greatest Songs of All Time Hot 100 Chart. In celebration,Billboard is launching a special collection of trading cards which volition be followed by the debut of a limited-edition NFT collection.
Chubby Checker once described the steps of his 1960 chart-topping hit "The Twist" every bit someone swiveling their hips, swinging their arms in the opposite direction and twisting their feet as if they were putting out a cigarette. The vocal and dance were simple but irresistible: Thanks to divide nautical chart runs in 1960 and again in 1962, "The Twist" was named Billboard's best Hot 100 No. 1 unmarried in 2008, a designation that factors in total weeks on the chart as well as exact chart positions, with weeks at No. one earning the greatest value and weeks at No. 100 earning the least. (Due to changes in chart methodology over the years, eras are weighted differently to account for nautical chart turnover rates during various periods.) To this day, Checker boasts on his website that it's an achievement no 1 else will claim "until 2065."
Then came The Weeknd. In early 2020, the singer born Abel Tesfaye released an ominous music video that saw him doing his ain piddling shuffle, swaying his hips and gingerly tapping his feet to a song, "Blinding Lights," that had debuted just two months before — and which would soon leave its ain mark on pop history. Though Tesfaye, 31, had topped plenty of charts earlier, the adrenaline-pumping synth-popular track (created with assistance from legendary songwriter-producer Max Martin) marked the final phase of his evolution from enigmatic breakout of Toronto'south underground R&B scene to genre-busting icon. And with cinematic, high-concept visuals and performances that took him all the style to the Super Basin halftime prove — all starring a mysterious blood-red-jacketed, increasingly bruised and bandaged character Tesfaye played throughout — "Blinding Lights" and the album that accompanied information technology, After Hours, also cemented Tesfaye as not only a radio fixture, merely an auteur in his own right.
"I feel like I've been making that record for a decade," Tesfaye says with a sigh today. "Blinding Lights" had a tiresome burn, reaching the tiptop of the Hot 100 in March 2020, the aforementioned week Later on Hours debuted atop the Billboard 200. But one time it took hold, listeners wouldn't let it go: The four-week No. 1 smash shattered the record for most weeks spent in the tiptop five (43 weeks), top 10 (57), top 40 (86) and on the Hot 100 (xc) — enough to degrade "The Twist" on Billboard's Greatest of All Time Hot 100 chart by the end of its chart run in September.
"From the get-go fourth dimension I met Abel, it was clear that he was destined for global stardom," says Republic Records co-founder/CEO Monte Lipman. "And information technology's only ane of those cases where the stars aligned. 'Blinding Lights' went into the zeitgeist and became 1 of those songs that just had this emotional impact on then many people around the earth."
From a fateful studio session to its loftier-concept rollout to its influence on his upcoming 5th album, Tesfaye, his closest collaborators and members of his team share how one of pop music's nearly historic hits came to be.
"There Was Nothing We Had Heard Like That Before From Abel."
After exorcising some personal demons with the 2018 EP My Love Melancholy, — a nighttime, muted throwback to his early on work — Tesfaye was fix to play pop star once again on his fourth studio album. He convened an all-star crew — including Swedish superproducer Martin, who had helped him score his get-go Hot 100 No. 1 with "Tin't Experience My Confront" — as well equally longtime collaborators and co-writers like Jason "DaHeala" Quenneville and Ahmad "Belly" Balshe to channel his dear of 1980s pop music and video-game soundtracks into radio-friendly anthems. The fabric came easily and quickly — he recorded After Hours tracks "Scared To Live" and "Save Your Tears" during the same session at New York's Jungle City Studios as "Blinding Lights."
Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye: My Dear Melancholy, was one of those things I had to but get off my chest, and I didn't really want anyone's input. So I was excited to be in the studio over again with collaborators I love. You lot tin can simply imagine how quick those songs came.
Max Martin, co-producer/author: Abel came with the vision of what the vocal should be, which was a very different tempo and vibe than what is usually done. He took a hazard, and that was very impressive to u.s.a.. We all felt this song was very special even early in the procedure.
Tesfaye: GTA: Vice City really opened my eyes to a lot of '80s music, so at that place was a nostalgia for when I was a child playing video games and listening to Hall & Oates and Michael Jackson while driving through the city.
Martin: My engineer Sam [Holland] had brought up equipment to project on the wall a computer-animated car driving through a futuristic urban center for inspiration. I hadn't seen something like that earlier, and Abel came in and loved it.
Tesfaye: Me and Max hadn't worked together since the Starboy album, so we were excited to connect over again. And it was the first time I worked with Oscar [Holter, a close Martin collaborator], and that was instantly kismet. And Belly and DaHeala are my guys — anything I do, I feel like I have to bounce ideas off them.
Ahmad "Belly" Balshe, co-author: Getting to lookout the great Max Martin and Abel create is a dream in itself, and I'm just across honored and proud to be a part of something this legendary.
Monte Lipman, co-founder/CEO, Republic Records: During a playback of an early version of After Hours in the studio, I was like, "Whoa, what was that?" We actually made him play it a couple more times. There was zero nosotros had heard like that before from Abel.
Tesfaye: I've always been tinkering with the [sounds of the] '80s. Information technology was much more subtle before, but I've always wanted to completely dive into information technology. And x years in, I think I've earned it.
Wassim "Sal" Slaiby, manager; co-founder/CEO, XO Records: He'due south got that ability to accept something and brand it cool, make it edgy, make it risky, make it kid-friendly.
La Mar C. Taylor, artistic director; co-founder, XO Records: He knows exactly what he wants. If you're a true Weeknd fan, then you empathise sonically where he was going with his music. He was always headed in this management. It was always building upwards to something like this. Information technology was such an ambitious record for Abel at the time. It was either going to be the biggest song in the world — or get over people's heads.
"I Had Never Seen Someone Accept On A Character Like That."
Making the vocal was only half the journey — Tesfaye also had to bring it to life visually. Just as he had shed the freeform locs of his "Can't Feel My Face" days for a sharper look during his Starboy rollout in 2016, the singer sought a new look for After Hours, turning to renowned Hollywood tailor Fresh (who had previously worked on suits for his red-carpet appearances and other events) to transform him into a nameless character inspired by Las Vegas noir. With his signature red blazer, he became central to The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights" performances and subsequent music videos, which followed the character on a disorienting, violent odyssey through the glitz and grit of Sin City — and inspired countless Reddit threads trying to unpack its meaning.
Taylor: Abel can have those long-winded rollouts and only keep the audience engaged the whole fourth dimension. This was similar George Lucas, when he dropped the get-go Star Wars poster a twelvemonth and a half out from the bodily film 24-hour interval, and every six months, dropped some other teaser leading upward to it.
Tesfaye: I toyed with the idea with Starboy and Dazzler Behind the Madness — in the videos, I was telling a throughline story. So I experience like Later Hours is me executing it at full potential, and me going full Method on it.
Fresh, tailor: He told me he had some ideas for his new album, and he wanted to try this suit concept out. He gave me some movies to sentinel.
Tesfaye: From Jack Nicholson'southward character in Chinatown to the film Possession to Tim Robbins in Jacob's Ladder, information technology's merely all of my favorite psychological thrillers and dramas in one universe.
Taylor: There was a nod to Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Casino by Martin Scorsese — really iconic Las Vegas cinema. We were just trying to pay respect to those great actors and filmmakers that really created our globe for us.
Fresh: I put some things together, and that became the reddish suit. Information technology really resonated with him, and he just kept reordering information technology. I think afterward the third reorder, I got it. I lost count after fifteen, eighteen. I saw the suit first come to life at the set of "Heartless" [Subsequently Hours' first single]. I went to Vegas to evangelize it to him. It was fascinating watching him work, and so just seeing information technology come together when the video really hit.
Slaiby: When you lot see the "Heartless" video, he's building that character for you. It wouldn't make sense to just build the character where ["Blinding Lights"] starts. Information technology feels like it'due south coming up before going into the story and into the vision.
Fresh: When he did this, it wasn't but Abel anymore. He created a persona and took this guy through a whole experience. I had never seen someone take on a character like that for an unabridged twelvemonth.
Tesfaye: People were asking me if I was hurt physically, if I was mentally OK.
Lipman: There actually is no detail likewise small in every moment and every performance.
Fresh: Abel is one of the biggest stars in the world, and then to be the guy that's responsible for producing that wait and having some artistic input in the concept, it's pretty crawly. He did the best task since Michael Jackson did that red jacket.
"It Helped United states Get Through A Very, Very Difficult And Dark Menses."
The rollout of "Blinding Lights" unfolded in blockbuster mode, beginning with the song'southward debut in a Mercedes-Benz campaign starring Tesfaye in late 2019. "I'm so happy he got to make 'Blinding Lights' at the right fourth dimension in his career, where he'south able to not only give the song the biggest push, just have a visitor like Mercedes say, 'Wow, we want to be a part of this,' " says Slaiby. However fans gave the song a life of its own, too: Amid the pandemic's onset in early on 2020, "Blinding Lights" soundtracked a joyful TikTok trip the light fantastic toe challenge that offered quarantining families and front-line health-intendance workers alike a piffling levity. After the song hitting No. i on the Hot 100 nautical chart dated Apr 4 (just as After Hours launched atop the Billboard 200), The Weeknd kept it alive with virtual concerts, awards show performances and remixes (Rosalía joined a new version in December 2020), culminating with his 2021 Super Bowl halftime show. "The day I said goodbye to the red jacket character was at the Super Bowl," says Tesfaye. "It kind of immortalized him." Still, the world wasn't quite ready to let become: His performance gave "Blinding Lights" a 45% weekly boost in streams and a 247% sales increase that kept the song going potent in its tertiary calendar twelvemonth, according to MRC Data.
Taylor: That TikTok challenge was then massive because I feel like people had so much time to exist at habitation with their families, their loved ones, doing these cute little quirky videos. I feel similar the timing of it was actually of import to the success of the tape. The pandemic was atrocious, merely seeing happy videos going viral of people dancing in the midst of the madness was really inspiring to run across.
Slaiby: People wanted a song that was emotional but at the aforementioned fourth dimension fabricated you get upwards and trip the light fantastic toe and simply experience complimentary. I think "Blinding Lights" has all these feelings.
Lipman: Information technology helped u.s.a. become through a very, very difficult and nighttime period. The tape brought and then much joy and essentially brought people together, and it's something that I've said to Abel, "You lot should exist incredibly proud of."
Jon Zellner, president of programming operations, iHeartMedia: If you lot think about songs that [cantankerous over and succeed at different radio formats], you have this evolution that sometimes fizzles out. And that wasn't the instance with this song because it'due south so melodic, it's so memorable, and there's and then much mass appeal.
Lipman: With a song like this, y'all open the window and you lot agree on for beloved life, considering this record is going to take you to places you haven't seen before and ultimately get into uncharted waters.
Taylor: As a visual person, the pandemic had a silver lining in the sense of, "Yo, we can become really creative with this s–t and push button the envelope." It was a existent eureka moment when we had the tardily-night and Super Bowl performances, which gave us the flexibility of doing things how we wanted.
Zellner: The advent at the Super Bowl helped [the vocal's trajectory], because that's really when you get into middle America.
Tesfaye: People tin't put a face to the song that they hear on the radio while they're in the car or at parties. The Super Bowl puts a face to all those memories.
Zellner: When a station has played a vocal thousands of times, what will happen in research is that, through the police force of averages, y'all'll kickoff to come across a lower score when a song gets burned, or people become tired of it. In the case of "Blinding Lights," there was very little burn on that vocal — and still is to this mean solar day.
"He Has Always Been Different."
"Blinding Lights" paved the way for even more Weeknd hits, including "Salve Your Tears" — which topped the Hot 100 in May thanks in role to an Ariana Grande remix — and the disco-infused "Take My Breath," the first taste of his next album, which he says will be out earlier his Subsequently Hours Til Dawn stadium tour begins next summer. "That's a lot of footing to cover," says Taylor of the tour. "And we desire to put on a show that has never been seen before in a stadium infinite." Yet even as the cinematic universe of After Hours marked a new level of artistry from the singer, Tesfaye says the success of "Blinding Lights" helped give him the confidence to pull off his next, fifty-fifty more than aggressive affiliate.
Tesfaye: I started writing the [next] anthology during the pandemic, which felt similar we're all in this scary, unknown territory. And I wanted to make music I thought sounded like going outside — I was obsessed with that feeling. I but felt similar I didn't know how to make this album until at present. Information technology probably would be too ambitious for me prior. I knew what I liked, but I felt like I didn't take the skill sets to deliver that type of projection until now.
Taylor: As we did each body of work, it's just getting more than refined, more refined, more refined to the sound where he's at at present.
Tesfaye: Picture the album being like the listener is expressionless. And they're stuck in this purgatory state, which I always imagined would be like being stuck in traffic waiting to reach the lite at the end of the tunnel. And while you're stuck in traffic, they got a radio station playing in the machine, with a radio host guiding you to the light and helping you transition to the other side. And then it could experience celebratory, could feel bleak, even so you desire to make it feel, just that'due south what The Dawn is for me.
Lipman: When you think about The Weeknd now, it's hard to just try and categorize him as any detail genre of music because he has reached that level of success. It's also what makes him so exciting going forwards, because you never know what'south adjacent.
Tesfaye: Who knows what the next one is going to sound like? When it comes to my albums, at that place is a cohesive audio going on, but I can't really stick to i style. So you'll hear EDM, hip-hop and three other types of sounds in one vocal — and somehow, we make it work.
Taylor: To go from being the underground rex to being where he is now, I don't call back it would've been received the style it is at present if it wasn't organic or if it didn't happen naturally. I've seen a lot of artists in the by that have gone from underground to pop, but they compromised along the way. They sold themselves out and barbarous short in their offerings to their fans, the ones who put them in that position. But with Abel, at that place was none of that because of the progression and evolution. Everything felt true to his creative person journey.
Tesfaye: [There were] songs that transcended into pop culture, like "The Hills." But past the fourth dimension "Blinding Lights" happened, I was ten years into my career and established equally a music figure in the industry already. So I'm glad "Blinding Lights" happened when it happened as opposed to it existence the outset single I've ever dropped. That'd be scary for me.
Slaiby: He has e'er been different — his way of making a song, his style of developing a show, his way of thinking of his marketing and rollouts. I think he'due south going to be that artist who will be remembered twenty, 30, forty, 50, 100 years from now.
Tesfaye: I don't think [the success of "Blinding Lights"] has hit me yet. I try not to dwell on information technology too much. I just count my blessings, and I'm simply grateful.
This story originally appeared in the Nov. 20, 2021, upshot of Billboard.
Source: https://www.billboard.com/music/features/the-weeknd-blinding-lights-billboard-cover-story-2021-interview-1235001282/
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