Abel Tesfaye is a name you may or may not be familiar with, but I’m sure you’ll soon recognize it everywhere. Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd, released his final album Hurry Up Tomorrow under his alias on January 31—his last album as The Weeknd before shifting to creating music under his birth name. This marks the end of an era spanning fourteen years, four Grammys, five platinum albums, and 27 billion-stream plaques. Tesfaye’s journey, which he described as “From homeless to Forbes list” in his song “Sidewalks,” has been nothing short of miraculous. As he decides to finally put The Weeknd to rest for good, it seems like a good time to reflect on the persona which had the music world wrapped around its fingers for the past decade.
Our story begins when Tesfaye, originally from Toronto, Canada, drops out of eleventh grade to pursue a life of partying; his title of The Weeknd comes from the fact that he ran away from home on a weekend. He moved into a loft with his friends, which they nicknamed the House of Balloons, where he threw promiscuous parties—now a tourist attraction in Toronto for fans. Tesfaye, amidst his double life as the host of these infamous parties, created a rhythm and blues duo titled “Bulleez n Nerdz,” and further proceeded to meet producers through mutual connections. After starting what producer Jeremy Rose called a “dark R&B project,” Tesfaye went on to finish the mixtape with producer Illangelo and release The Weeknd’s first mixtape, titled “House of Balloons”, as a nod to the venue and home which sparked the inspiration for most of the lyrics, on March 21, 2011. On top of writing songs for and being featured on Drake’s 2011 album “Take Care”, Tesfaye released two more mixtapes in 2011, “Thursday” and “Echoes of Silence”, which were eventually remastered and released together in the album Trilogy after Tesfaye signed with Republic Records in 2012.
Come 2013, The Weeknd released his first studio album, Kissland. While extremely popular and acclaimed today, it failed to extend its reach past the Weeknd’s fanbase at the time of its release. Amidst this minor setback, Tesfaye was set up with producer Max Martin and recorded “Love Me Harder”, a duet with pop star Ariana Grande. With momentum on his side, Tesfaye recorded and released three of his most popular songs to date, in “Earned It” (From 50 Shades of Gray), “The Hills”, and “Can’t Feel My Face”, which all end up on his Grammy-winning 2015 album Beauty Behind the Madness.
The Weeknd truly cemented himself as a superstar with his 2016 album Starboy, winning him his second Grammy. He followed it up with My Dear Melancholy in 2018, which was heavily influenced by his heart wrenching breakup with artist and actress Selena Gomez. Fans and critics often compare MDM to his earlier music, as its dark and heartfelt sounds give listeners feelings similar to those produced by Trilogy.
The beginning of the end for The Weeknd came in 2020 with the release of After Hours, which contained the smash hit “Blinding Lights”, which is now the most streamed song of all time on Spotify. But when the Weeknd was invited to perform at the 2021 Super Bowl, it ironically resulted in the title of worst Super Bowl halftime performance of all time. After following up After Hours with Dawn FM in 2022, the Weeknd announced in June 2023 that he was working on the final part of his trilogy. On September 4, 2024, Hurry Up Tomorrow was announced, and was revealed to be the last album Tesfaye would release under his Weeknd alias. Three nights later, Tesfaye held a one night only concert with rapper Playboi Carti in São Paulo where they performed The Weeknd’s hit single “Timeless” for the first time. It was officially released on September 27, 2024, and was followed up on October 30 with a phonk release titled “São Paulo.”
In November, as the hype surrounding Hurry Up Tomorrow began to die down due to the seemingly everlasting period between the album announcement and release, The Weeknd sent a two sentence message to his fans via X surrounding the album release on November 11, 2024: “Enjoy the long goodbye. You’ll wish we took our time.”
As well as rejuvenating his fans’ anticipation, this letter let the weight of the album’s release sink in. This album truly was the last we will ever see of The Weeknd. The album was finally released on January 31, 2025, featuring seamless transitions between songs and a couple of features to keep the listener intrigued throughout its 84 minute runtime. Quite contrary to The Weeknd’s classic style of brooding sound and libertine themes, the album seemed more cinematic than musical, with little replay value outside of a few select tracks. However, that quality fits well with the Hurry Up Tomorrow movie that is set to release in May starring Barry Keoghan, Jenna Ortega, and Tesfaye himself.
As we see how well Hurry Up Tomorrow fares, we wave farewell to one of the most influential names in the history of music, and one of the most popular artists of all time. It seems now all we can do is wait in anticipation for what Abel Tesfaye will create as an artist, in hopes it will live up to the greatness we watched go out with a bang.
