Throughout the past decade few artists have been as successful as Abel Tesfaye otherwise known as TheWeeknd. Coming out of Toronto, Tesfaye began his music career by rapping under the name Kin Kane in 2009 but after little success he changed course, moving to a rap influenced R&B sound and changing his stage name to TheWeeknd. After over ten years in the industry, Abel has announced that TheWeeknd alias will be retired after his next album. 

On March 21st, 2011, Tesfaye dropped his debut mixtape; the critically acclaimed House of Balloons the first part of his trilogy of mixtapes that all released within one year. The mixtape opens with the track ‘High for This’, a murky and atmospheric start to the project. The song depicts Abel about to sleep with a woman he met at a party, but before that, he tells her that she wants to be “High for this”.  

In the opening tracks, the character Abel depicts has been shown to be nothing short of a scumbag as he primarily only talks about drugs, meaningless hookups and the painful morning after. On the title track of the mixtape, ‘House of Balloons/ Glass Table Girls’, the first half of the song is standard Weeknd storytelling about throwing parties in a drug house. He explains the party he’s at with the lyrics, “If it hurts to breath open a window, or your mind wants to leave but you can’t go”, basically saying that the smoke in the house is too much to handle due to hotboxing. However, in the next lyric, Abel reveals his insecurity of being left alone as he must convince people that they’re having fun, “This is a happy house, we’re happy here in our happy house oh this is fun”.  The second half is just one drugged-out verse that reveals that TheWeeknd doesn’t live for connection and love, but just for the next high, and the next person in his bed. “I heard he do drugs now? You heard wrong I been on it for a minute”. Before, Abel has been singing about one-night stands as unrequited love where two people can just express themselves, but throughout this song he reveals that all he cares about is the sex, not the person.  

The last track, ‘The Knowing’ takes place months after the rest of mixtape. It tells the story of Tesfaye being in a committed relationship where his partner is cheating on him, “I know everything”. However, instead of leaving Abel decides to take petty revenge on his partner as heard with the lyric, “You probably thought that you’d break my heart, you probably thought you’d make me cry but baby its ok”. He decides not only to cheat, but to do it blatantly. He elaborates that they go on with the relationship even though both are unhappy and unfaithful to each other, “Now we’re lying about the nights, hidin’ all it behind the smiles”. House of Balloons characterizes Abel for the first era of his career, the trilogy to his debut album Kiss Land. 

The second chapter of the Trilogy, Thursday, is less about Abel and more about his partner at the time, a good, innocent girl named Valerie. In the track, ‘Lonely Star’ Tesfaye recounts meeting her at a party and immediately having a connection. He saw her as a bright light in a dark and desolate space, a lonely star. The next few tracks go on to highlight how great Valerie is and how she might be able to fix The Weeknd.  

However, when the track ‘Life of the Party’ comes, the mixtape takes a sinister turn. Abel has convinced Valerie to go to more parties, do more and harder drugs, and overall live his lifestyle because it makes her more fun as she has become the life of the party. He shows this with lyrics such as, “Show me how you go downtown with the drugs in your body, take that step, you’re the life of the party”.   

On the fifth and sixth tracks ‘The Birds Pt. 1’ and ‘The Birds Pt. 2’ Abel sings about how his relationship with Valerie has sent them both into depression, they both still feel for each other, but neither is happy. Tesfaye sings, “So don’t you fall in love, don’t make me make you fall in love, don’t make me make you fall in love with a n**** like me” – essentially telling her that their relationship is unhealthy, and she should be with someone better. Not knowing how to handle him leaving her since she spent the entirety of the mixtape before this changing herself to make him happier, Valerie takes her own life, “Now you’re pleading, she on the floor, she on the floor”.  

Thursday as a mixtape shows Abel the consequences his manipulation and lifestyle can have on the people he cares about most. Ironically, right after Valerie’s death, Abel becomes successful.  With newfound fame he expresses it the only way he knows how: parties, drugs, and women.  

The final part of the Trilogy, Echoes of Silence, is perhaps the darkest project Tesfaye released. The opening track ‘D.D.’ is a cover of the classic Michael Jackson song ‘Dirty Diana’. The song is about sleeping with random women on tour while being in a committed relationship, “She probably worried tonight, I didn’t call on the phone to say that I’m all right, Diana walked up to me, said I’m all yours tonight”. The track sets up the overarching theme of the tape – abusing fame to get what he wants, and the emptiness of his desire.  

A later track ‘Next’ shows Abel knowing how meaningless his hook-ups are and how now, girls only want him for his fame, “Girl I might be 21, but I got memories to prove that I’ve seen your kind before and I know exactly what you want”, “You just want me ‘cause I’m next”.  

The track ‘Same Old Song’ perfectly encapsulates how TheWeeknd is feeling at this point in his life. Up until now, he’s always been manipulative, misogynistic, and selfish except now he realizes it about himself, but he believes he has an excuse for all this – he is bitter that women only want him for his success. The track shows another woman coming to Abel looking for a relationship and eventually becoming involved with him. From then on, she takes after his lifestyle and gives both her body and free will to him. After this, TheWeeknd severs ties with this woman, all because she’s boring, the same old song, “You never thought that I would ever go far…”. From then on, Abel continues with his habits until finally going on tour and leaving Toronto for the first time.  

In late 2013, Tesfaye dropped his first album, Kiss land. The opening track ‘Professional’ is a moody, synth heavy story of Abel talking to someone about hiding emotions and longing for more. “You need someone to tell you how to feel, and you think your happiness is real”. Only, the song is really Abel talking to himself; trying to process what to do with his life now with his sudden onset of fame.  The lyric, “So, you’re somebody now but what’s a somebody in a nobody town?”, shows that Tesfaye has an urge to leave Toronto and become something more.  

The second song on the album, ‘The Town’ depicts TheWeeknd leaving Toronto for the first time to go on tour, subsequently leaving the woman he’s in a committed relationship with. He admits he has a genuine fondness for this woman, “You made me feel so good before I left on the road”.  

On the fifth track titled, ‘Belong to the World’ Tesfaye reminisces on an encounter he had with a prostitute while on tour. He explains that he felt alike to her, he sings, “The way you doubt your feelings and look the other way, well it’s something I relate to”. He believes he’s had a realization about himself after this experience; that he can separate his feelings from his lust.  

The track ‘Wanderlust’ is a funky, fast, Michael Jackson inspired song that shows Abel now has a disdain for any feeling of love. He sings, “They’re in love with this idea of love, it’s a shame that they’ll believe it’ll come”.  

The penultimate track ‘Pretty’ tells the story of Abel coming back to Toronto after his tour. He goes to see his old girlfriend from before he left, only to find out she moved on from him and found someone else. He enters a state of hypercritical jealousy, as he never thought anyone could move on from him even though he repeatedly had relationships with other woman while on tour. His anger causes him to lash out at her, he wants her to know that she made a mistake, “And you will never feel so pretty, and you will never feel this beautiful”.  

The final track ‘Tears in the Rain’ is a slow, and sad acceptance of his life now. He implies that there’s nothing left he can do except continue down the path he’s been on even though he feels nothing doing it, “They all feel the same, adjust to the fame ‘cause no one will love you like her, it’s pointless like tears in the rain”. Kiss Land was Abels breaking point; he didn’t know what to do, but he knew that if he continued his path, he would never find happiness. 

On his sophomore album, Beauty Behind The Madness, shows Abel as he enters the upper echelon of society and how deals with his new Hollywood lifestyle. Throughout the start of the album, Abel maintains the image of a womanizer in songs like ‘Tell Your Friends’ and ‘Often’. Specifically, in ‘Often’, the song’s lyrics have a juxtaposition from the sample. Abel sings, “I usually love sleeping all alone this time around bring a friend with you, but we ain’t really gonna sleep at all”, but the sample derives from a Turkish poem that translates to, every day lasts for years, I’m tired of going alone. Having this sample shows one of the small moments of vulnerability he has throughout the album.  

Throughout the album, Abel seems more in tune with his emotions. The track ‘In the Night’ is a prime example of his vulnerability. He recounts falling for a woman who’s clearly a stripper, “In the night she hears it calling, in the night she dances to relieve the pain”. He elaborates how she has been abused by other men, “He sang a song when he did it, he was cold, and he was so unforgiving”- seeing someone he cares for be treated the same way he’s treated people for years starts Abel on a path of self-betterment and empathy.  

Beauty Behind The Madness signified not only a sonic shift, but also a popularity one, as Hollywood elites were now his peers; he was performing at the same level as the Taylor Swifts and Drakes of the world. More than anything though, BBTM showed Abels first leap into changing himself for the better. 

His next Album, 2016’s Starboy was another drastic shift to an electronic sound, a far cry from his roots that many fans had grown accustomed to. Abel implies that he did this so that he wouldn’t be locked into one aesthetic in order to branch out and express himself more. Compared to his last releases, Starboy doesn’t really have much of a narrative behind it. Abel has admitted that the album was purposefully sporadic as it reflected a collage of different ideas. Some of them are continuations of themes he set up in BBTM such as his increased vulnerability as seen in tracks like ‘True Colors’ ‘Secrets’ and ‘Die for You’. However, the most common theme on the album was his expression of his success. Throughout the album, Abel did become more vulnerable and the surrender of emotion he has led directly to his next project. 

In 2018, Tesfaye dropped his EP My Dear Melancholy. The EP came to be after the dissolution of some of his real-life partnerships with celebrities like Bella Hadid and Selena Gomez. In this moment of pain, he returned to his old sound. The track ‘Call Out My Name’ encapsulates the EP: It’s somber, slow, and depressing. ‘Call Out My Name’ is a take me back song, a desperate plea to stay with his partner amidst the end of a relationship. In the track, Abel is pouring his heart out at this woman, admitting how much he felt for her, “I said I didn’t feel nothing baby, but I lied, I almost cut a piece of myself for your life”. He goes through many emotions like sadness, anger and loneliness. He also sings, “Guess I was just another pit stop till you made up your mind, you just wasted my time”. After this dark moment of his life, he was prepared for it all to end, which is exactly what happened next on his next album, After Hours. 

After Hours picks up with Abel immediately after going through another breakup as heard on the track ‘Alone Again’ he sings, “I don’t know if I can sleep alone again”- not knowing what to do, Abel takes to the heart of LA where he indulges in his old party habits on the track ‘Blinding Lights’. To ease the pain he feels, he also briefly returns to his womanizing ways on the track ‘Heartless’, he sings, “Never need a b**** I’m what a b**** need”. However, he encounters a woman who treats him the way he treated others for so long, as heard on the track ‘Snowchild’, he sings, “Never need a man, she what a man need, so I keep on fallin’ for her daily”.  

From this point on, the album thematically is less like his previous work and sounds more longing. Committing himself to being open with his feeling and expressing his true love for this woman. On the title track, ‘After Hours’ he realizes that a relationship with this woman isn’t going to happen the way he wants it to. He reflects on the everything that happened throughout the album, “Girl I felt so alone inside of this crowded room, different girls on the floor distracting my thoughts of you, I turned into the man I used to be”. After Hours reflects his emotional state after a breakup, and a true change in how he deals with his emotions. Instead of drowning his sorrows in drugs and other women, Abel is now allowing himself to feel pain and admit he cares. No longer reluctant to true intimacy, Abel lets his old self die on the closing song ‘Until I Bleed Out’, deciding to change for the better. 

In early 2022, Tesfaye released Dawn FM which sonically was very similar to After Hours. It continued with the ‘80’s synth sound but went way further into being more disco inspired. The second track on the album ‘Gasoline’ starts the album with themes of living in the moment and thinking impulsively, “It’s 5 AM I’m nihilist, I know there’s nothing after this”.  The early story of the album shows Abel going back to his old habits of parties, drugs, and selfish relationships, however the album isn’t a return to those themes, it’s a reanalysis of them.  

On the track ‘Best Friends’ he sings about a friend with benefits situation that ends because his partner caught feelings. Months later, the track ‘Is There Someone Else’ takes place. Here, Abel becomes slightly jealous that his partner moved on, but he realizes that he can’t go back into his old habits, “I don’t want to be a prisoner to who I used to be”. He meets up with her again in the track ‘I Heard You’re Married’ where he is respectful to her, but still denies having feelings for her. Finally on the track ‘Out of Time’ Abel admits he loved this girl and that he missed his chance with her, “Say I love you girl but I’m out of time”. Throughout Dawn FM Abel learns how to process his emotions and pain in a way that lets him grow rather than sink deeper into depression. 

The character depicted at the beginning of House of Balloons in 2011 could not be more different from the man he’s become in Dawn FM in 2022. Abel has learned how to confront and embrace his emotions. He gradually learned the consequences of his destructive habits, what it means to love, and how to deal with his pain. Because of all that, the character of TheWeeknd is coming to an end and the next era of Abel’s career is just beginning.