Can I Make It Better With the Lights Turned on
The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights" is the new No. 1 song on Billboard's Greatest Songs of All Fourth dimension Hot 100 Chart. In commemoration,Billboard is launching a special collection of trading cards which will exist followed by the debut of a express-edition NFT drove.
Chubby Checker one time described the steps of his 1960 nautical chart-topping hitting "The Twist" as someone swiveling their hips, swinging their artillery in the contrary direction and twisting their feet as if they were putting out a cigarette. The vocal and dance were simple but irresistible: Thanks to split chart runs in 1960 and again in 1962, "The Twist" was named Billboard's all-time Hot 100 No. 1 single in 2008, a designation that factors in total weeks on the chart as well as verbal chart positions, with weeks at No. 1 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 chart turnover rates during various periods.) To this twenty-four hours, Checker boasts on his website that information technology's an achievement no ane else will claim "until 2065."
Then came The Weeknd. In early on 2020, the singer born Abel Tesfaye released an ominous music video that saw him doing his own fiddling shuffle, swaying his hips and gingerly tapping his feet to a song, "Blinding Lights," that had debuted just 2 months earlier — and which would before long leave its ain marking on pop history. Though Tesfaye, 31, had topped plenty of charts earlier, the adrenaline-pumping synth-pop track (created with help from legendary songwriter-producer Max Martin) marked the final stage of his development from enigmatic breakout of Toronto's secret R&B scene to genre-busting icon. And with cinematic, high-concept visuals and performances that took him all the manner to the Super Basin halftime show — all starring a mysterious scarlet-jacketed, increasingly bruised and bandaged graphic symbol Tesfaye played throughout — "Blinding Lights" and the album that accompanied it, After Hours, besides cemented Tesfaye as non just a radio fixture, but 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 ho-hum fire, reaching the top of the Hot 100 in March 2020, the aforementioned week Later on Hours debuted atop the Billboard 200. But once information technology took concur, listeners wouldn't allow it get: The four-calendar week No. ane nail shattered the record for most weeks spent in the top v (43 weeks), top 10 (57), top 40 (86) and on the Hot 100 (90) — plenty to dethrone "The Twist" on Billboard's Greatest of All Time Hot 100 chart by the end of its chart run in September.
"From the first time I met Abel, it was articulate that he was destined for global stardom," says Republic Records co-founder/CEO Monte Lipman. "And it'south just i of those cases where the stars aligned. 'Blinding Lights' went into the zeitgeist and became one of those songs that just had this emotional impact on so many people around the world."
From a fateful studio session to its high-concept rollout to its influence on his upcoming 5th album, Tesfaye, his closest collaborators and members of his team share how one of popular music's near celebrated hits came to be.
"There Was Nada We Had Heard Similar That Before From Abel."
Later exorcising some personal demons with the 2022 EP My Love Melancholy, — a dark, muted throwback to his early work — Tesfaye was ready to play pop star again on his fourth studio album. He convened an all-star crew — including Swedish superproducer Martin, who had helped him score his first Hot 100 No. 1 with "Can't Feel My Face" — as well as longtime collaborators and co-writers similar Jason "DaHeala" Quenneville and Ahmad "Belly" Balshe to channel his dear of 1980s pop music and video-game soundtracks into radio-friendly anthems. The textile came easily and rapidly — he recorded Later Hours tracks "Scared To Live" and "Relieve Your Tears" during the same session at New York's Jungle City Studios equally "Blinding Lights."
Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye: My Dear Melancholy, was one of those things I had to just get off my chest, and I didn't really desire anyone's input. And then I was excited to be in the studio again with collaborators I beloved. Yous tin simply imagine how quick those songs came.
Max Martin, co-producer/author: Abel came with the vision of what the song should be, which was a very different tempo and vibe than what is usually washed. He took a hazard, and that was very impressive to u.s.. We all felt this song was very special even early on in the process.
Tesfaye: GTA: Vice City actually opened my eyes to a lot of '80s music, and then there was a nostalgia for when I was a kid playing video games and listening to Hall & Oates and Michael Jackson while driving through the urban center.
Martin: My engineer Sam [Holland] had brought up equipment to project on the wall a reckoner-animated auto driving through a futuristic urban center for inspiration. I hadn't seen something like that before, and Abel came in and loved it.
Tesfaye: Me and Max hadn't worked together since the Starboy anthology, and so we were excited to connect again. And it was the first fourth dimension I worked with Oscar [Holter, a close Martin collaborator], and that was instantly kismet. And Abdomen and DaHeala are my guys — anything I do, I feel similar I have to bounce ideas off them.
Ahmad "Abdomen" Balshe, co-author: Getting to watch the great Max Martin and Abel create is a dream in itself, and I'grand only beyond honored and proud to be a function of something this legendary.
Monte Lipman, co-founder/CEO, Republic Records: During a playback of an early version of Afterwards Hours in the studio, I was similar, "Whoa, what was that?" We actually made him play it a couple more times. There was nothing we had heard like that before from Abel.
Tesfaye: I've e'er been tinkering with the [sounds of the] '80s. Information technology was much more subtle before, but I've always wanted to completely swoop into it. And 10 years in, I call up I've earned it.
Wassim "Sal" Slaiby, director; co-founder/CEO, XO Records: He's got that power to take something and make it cool, make it edgy, go far risky, make it kid-friendly.
La Mar C. Taylor, creative managing director; co-founder, XO Records: He knows exactly what he wants. If you're a true Weeknd fan, so y'all empathise sonically where he was going with his music. He was always headed in this direction. It was always building up to something like this. It was such an ambitious tape for Abel at the time. Information technology was either going to be the biggest vocal in the world — or go over people'south heads.
"I Had Never Seen Someone Have On A Grapheme Like That."
Making the vocal was but half the journeying — Tesfaye also had to bring it to life visually. Simply as he had shed the freeform locs of his "Can't Feel My Face" days for a sharper wait during his Starboy rollout in 2016, the singer sought a new wait for Later on 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 grapheme inspired by Las Vegas noir. With his signature cherry-red blazer, he became central to The Weeknd'due south "Blinding Lights" performances and subsequent music videos, which followed the character on a disorienting, violent odyssey through the glitz and grit of Sin Metropolis — and inspired countless Reddit threads trying to unpack its meaning.
Taylor: Abel can take those long-winded rollouts and just keep the audience engaged the whole time. This was like George Lucas, when he dropped the get-go Star Wars affiche a twelvemonth and a half out from the actual moving-picture show day, and every six months, dropped another teaser leading upwards to it.
Tesfaye: I toyed with the thought with Starboy and Dazzler Behind the Madness — in the videos, I was telling a throughline story. And then I feel similar After Hours is me executing information technology at full potential, and me going total Method on it.
Fresh, tailor: He told me he had some ideas for his new album, and he wanted to endeavor this adjust concept out. He gave me some movies to watch.
Tesfaye: From Jack Nicholson's character in Chinatown to the film Possession to Tim Robbins in Jacob'due south Ladder, it'due south 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 past Martin Scorsese — really iconic Las Vegas picture palace. Nosotros were just trying to pay respect to those corking actors and filmmakers that really created our world for us.
Fresh: I put some things together, and that became the crimson arrange. Information technology really resonated with him, and he simply kept reordering it. I think afterwards the third reorder, I got information technology. I lost count after 15, 18. I saw the adapt first come to life at the set up of "Heartless" [Later Hours' beginning single]. I went to Vegas to deliver it to him. It was fascinating watching him work, and then just seeing information technology come together when the video actually hit.
Slaiby: When yous see the "Heartless" video, he'southward building that graphic symbol for yous. It wouldn't make sense to only build the grapheme where ["Blinding Lights"] starts. It feels like information technology'southward coming up earlier going into the story and into the vision.
Fresh: When he did this, it wasn't merely Abel anymore. He created a persona and took this guy through a whole experience. I had never seen someone accept on a graphic symbol like that for an entire twelvemonth.
Tesfaye: People were request me if I was hurt physically, if I was mentally OK.
Lipman: There really is no detail too small in every moment and every performance.
Fresh: Abel is 1 of the biggest stars in the world, so to be the guy that's responsible for producing that await and having some creative input in the concept, it's pretty awesome. He did the all-time job since Michael Jackson did that reddish jacket.
"It Helped Us Become Through A Very, Very Difficult And Dark Period."
The rollout of "Blinding Lights" unfolded in blockbuster fashion, beginning with the song'due south debut in a Mercedes-Benz entrada starring Tesfaye in late 2019. "I'm so happy he got to make 'Blinding Lights' at the right time in his career, where he's able to non just give the vocal the biggest push, only have a company similar Mercedes say, 'Wow, nosotros want to be a part of this,' " says Slaiby. Nonetheless fans gave the song a life of its ain, likewise: Amongst the pandemic's onset in early 2020, "Blinding Lights" soundtracked a blithesome TikTok trip the light fantastic challenge that offered quarantining families and front end-line health-care workers alike a little levity. Subsequently the vocal hit No. ane on the Hot 100 nautical chart dated April 4 (only every bit Later Hours launched atop the Billboard 200), The Weeknd kept it live with virtual concerts, awards evidence performances and remixes (Rosalía joined a new version in Dec 2020), culminating with his 2022 Super Basin halftime show. "The day I said bye to the red jacket graphic symbol was at the Super Basin," says Tesfaye. "It kind of immortalized him." Still, the earth wasn't quite ready to let go: His performance gave "Blinding Lights" a 45% weekly boost in streams and a 247% sales increase that kept the vocal going strong in its third calendar year, co-ordinate to MRC Data.
Taylor: That TikTok challenge was so massive because I feel like people had then much time to be at home with their families, their loved ones, doing these beautiful little quirky videos. I feel similar the timing of information technology was actually important to the success of the tape. The pandemic was awful, but seeing happy videos going viral of people dancing in the midst of the madness was really inspiring to see.
Slaiby: People wanted a song that was emotional but at the aforementioned time made you lot get up and dance and just feel complimentary. I retrieve "Blinding Lights" has all these feelings.
Lipman: It helped u.s. get through a very, very difficult and nighttime flow. The record brought so much joy and essentially brought people together, and information technology's something that I've said to Abel, "Y'all should exist incredibly proud of."
Jon Zellner, president of programming operations, iHeartMedia: If y'all think about songs that [cantankerous over and succeed at unlike radio formats], you accept this evolution that sometimes fizzles out. And that wasn't the case with this song considering information technology'south so melodic, it's so memorable, and there's and so much mass entreatment.
Lipman: With a song similar this, you lot open the window and y'all hold on for love life, because this record is going to take you lot to places you lot haven't seen before and ultimately go into uncharted waters.
Taylor: As a visual person, the pandemic had a silvery lining in the sense of, "Yo, nosotros can become really artistic with this southward–t and push the envelope." It was a real eureka moment when nosotros had the late-night and Super Bowl performances, which gave us the flexibility of doing things how we wanted.
Zellner: The appearance at the Super Basin helped [the song'due south trajectory], because that'south really when y'all become into middle America.
Tesfaye: People can't put a face to the song that they hear on the radio while they're in the auto or at parties. The Super Bowl puts a confront to all those memories.
Zellner: When a station has played a vocal thousands of times, what will happen in research is that, through the law of averages, y'all'll start to see a lower score when a vocal gets burned, or people become tired of it. In the case of "Blinding Lights," there was very piffling burn on that song — and still is to this twenty-four hour period.
"He Has Always Been Different."
"Blinding Lights" paved the way for even more Weeknd hits, including "Save Your Tears" — which topped the Hot 100 in May thanks in part to an Ariana Grande remix — and the disco-infused "Take My Breath," the first gustation of his next album, which he says will be out before his After Hours Til Dawn stadium bout begins next summer. "That's a lot of ground to cover," says Taylor of the tour. "And we want to put on a show that has never been seen before in a stadium space." Yet even as the cinematic universe of Later on 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, even more aggressive affiliate.
Tesfaye: I started writing the [side by side] album during the pandemic, which felt like we're all in this scary, unknown territory. And I wanted to make music I thought sounded like going exterior — I was obsessed with that feeling. I just felt like I didn't know how to brand this anthology until now. It probably would be too aggressive for me prior. I knew what I liked, simply I felt like I didn't have the skill sets to evangelize that blazon of project until at present.
Taylor: As nosotros did each body of work, it's but getting more refined, more refined, more refined to the sound where he's at now.
Tesfaye: Picture the album being like the listener is dead. And they're stuck in this purgatory state, which I always imagined would be like being stuck in traffic waiting to reach the calorie-free at the cease of the tunnel. And while y'all're stuck in traffic, they got a radio station playing in the automobile, with a radio host guiding you to the calorie-free and helping you transition to the other side. And so it could feel celebratory, could experience bleak, however you want to make it feel, but that's what The Dawn is for me.
Lipman: When you remember about The Weeknd now, it'due south difficult to just try and categorize him every bit any item genre of music considering he has reached that level of success. Information technology's as well what makes him so exciting going forward, because you never know what's side by side.
Tesfaye: Who knows what the next i is going to audio like? When information technology comes to my albums, there is a cohesive sound going on, only I can't really stick to ane manner. So you'll hear EDM, hip-hop and three other types of sounds in i song — and somehow, we brand information technology piece of work.
Taylor: To go from being the hugger-mugger king to being where he is now, I don't recollect it would've been received the way information technology is at present if it wasn't organic or if it didn't happen naturally. I've seen a lot of artists in the past that have gone from underground to pop, but they compromised along the way. They sold themselves out and fell short in their offerings to their fans, the ones who put them in that position. Only with Abel, there was none of that because of the progression and development. Everything felt true to his creative person journey.
Tesfaye: [There were] songs that transcended into pop culture, like "The Hills." Merely by the time "Blinding Lights" happened, I was 10 years into my career and established as a music figure in the industry already. So I'm glad "Blinding Lights" happened when it happened as opposed to it being the first single I've e'er dropped. That'd be scary for me.
Slaiby: He has always been different — his way of making a song, his way of developing a show, his way of thinking of his marketing and rollouts. I retrieve he'due south going to be that artist who will be remembered 20, 30, 40, fifty, 100 years from now.
Tesfaye: I don't think [the success of "Blinding Lights"] has hit me yet. I try non to dwell on it besides much. I just count my blessings, and I'm just grateful.
This story originally appeared in the Nov. 20, 2021, issue of Billboard.
Source: https://www.billboard.com/music/features/the-weeknd-blinding-lights-billboard-cover-story-2021-interview-1235001282/
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