The Weeknd - DAWN FM review
The Weeknd continues to grow as an artist as he follows up the fantastic 'After Hours' with an even more '80s-inspired record in Dawn FM.
After a year where music was inconsistent and a lot of albums didn’t feel fully thought out, 2022 opened up with a handful of massive releases as The Weeknd dropped his follow-up to After Hours, Dawn FM.
This is the fifth studio album from Abel Tesfaye, who entered the scene as a full-blown R&B artist with some hints of dark wave and alternative, but after Kiss Land, it was the 2015 record Beauty Behind The Madness that made The Weeknd a household name in popular music.
Tracks like “Often”, “The Hills”, and “Can’t Feel My Face” brought Abel into the pop realm and he’s branched into one of the most well-known artists right now.
While I have enjoyed quite a few songs from The Weeknd, no single album really came together for me as good until After Hours right at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only was the narrative of a messed-up, drug-fueled night in Las Vegas enthralling, but his vocals were the most honed in and energetic than any other album before it.
I find it quite ludicrous and out-of-pocket that fans of The Weeknd prefer some of the sappy, nearly-comatose sounds in his rise than what he’s released recently because Dawn FM is easily the second-best album from The Weeknd.
This new album serves as a sequel to After Hours in the context that his character from After Hours appears to have died from the events of that album and is now reminiscing on his life and having some regrets about decisions made in and out of relationships.
For the most part, The Weeknd accomplishes this narrative using this as a type of radio format, hence the letters, “FM” and we get some great lines and delivery from Jim Carrey as he does a handful of poems that serve as transitions between songs.
I was a little nervous at the start of the record as “Gasoline” opens with The Weeknd completely shifting his vocal inflections and pitch that make him sound like the lead for some wannabe contemporary version of Depeche Mode. Yeah, not the best start to the record as we all know that fake accents lead to bad songs…*cough..DRAKE..cough*.
The nerves get even worse on the next track “How Do I Make You Love Me?” as it’s an over bloated club banger. Abel sounds ridiculous on this track as he essentially sounds like artificial intelligence trying to sing and the synths are annoying as hell on this track.
However, the album finally makes a turn with the incredibly fun “Take My Breath” that we heard last year. It’s the first instance on the record where Abel’s vocals shine and the momentum picks up from here as “Sacrifice” follows this song.
What can’t be said about this track?
If you played this for someone and told them that this was jokingly off Michael Jackson’s Thriller, they might believe you. This is like some tribute to the legend himself Quincy Jones with this incredible groove leading the track. The drums are insane and The Weeknd is in peak form. If this was an attempt to make a new version of “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’”, then he did a pretty damn good job.
Speaking of Jones, he shows up to provide some heartfelt words on his upbringing, but it’s the instrumentation teased that had me pausing this pure shock as it appeared The Weeknd was about to drop a pure ‘80’s R&B ballad, and gosh darn it, he did the thing.
I don’t have enough positive words for “Out of Time.” It’s by far the best track on the album and possibly one of The Weeknd’s best tracks ever.
It’s like a mixture of Michael McDonald’s “I Keep Forgettin’” and Bill Withers’ “Just the Two of Us.” Throw the instrumentation of those two together along with some dreamy synths and you have this fantastic track.
Before I get to the next highlight, I’ll get this out of the way and say that I don’t enjoy the features from Tyler, the Creator and Lil Wayne. While it’s not their verses or flows that ruin their appearances, neither of them fit well into their respective tracks and there’s certainly a lack of chemistry between The Weeknd and Tyler as it’s their first time sharing a song.
“Best Friends” is this album’s version of “Heartless” as it’s a straight banger with The Weeknd saying “Hey, I have no interest in a relationship. We were just having sex platonically. Don’t catch feelings.” It’s pure machismo from The Weeknd and hard not to admire.
While I don’t think this song adds much to the narrative of the album, maybe it’s this character making a decision that he thought through in order to not have a romance he would regret later on.
The final song that deserves its flowers is “Less Than Zero.”
The Weeknd sounds more vulnerable on this song than any other he’s ever done as his confidence is shot and struggles to have any positive affirmations when it comes to this woman he talks about on it.
While “Phantom Regret” isn’t a song, this is the best from Carrey on the album as it potentially teases a trilogy with The Weeknd and will be about him in the afterlife. There’s some pretty amazing lines from Carrey here as he talks about how Heaven isn’t for those who hold regrets and responding to those that may have brought on some hate, maybe from social media with the line “When you weren't liked or followed, how did you behave?”
I also love the Prince nod with “When the purple rain falls, We're all bathed in its grace.”
While The Weeknd could never live up to all-time artists like Prince or MJ, this is a great effort from him to bring back those sounds and allow this newer generation of music listeners to hear how legendary they are.
I much prefer the narrative on After Hours over this record and as a whole, but this is another win in the catalog for The Weeknd and a great way to begin 2022.
Richest Tracks: “Take My Breath”, “Sacrifice”, “Out of Time”, “I Heard You’re Married”, “Less Than Zero”
Worst Track: “Gasoline”
Rating: 7/10