While Starboy may not be a giant creative risk stretching away and beyond what we've come to expect from The Weeknd, it's a continuation of Abel's edgy salacious narrative and a complete assassination of pop's thematic normalcy.
It’s a musically diverse, but cohesive collection of songs that will knock anywhere — from the club to the bedroom.
Starboy won’t immortalize his legacy just yet but it will strengthen a once desolate Toronto kid’s placement in a musical sect he probably couldn’t even have ever dreamed of being in.
Starboy is one of the most confident releases of the year, one bold enough to reveal the cracks in The Weeknd’s façade for the sake of resonant art.
Nothing matches the euphoria of “Can’t Feel My Face” or “In the Night”—nor could it. Instead, everyone plays on the Weeknd’s turf now, opting for muted hooks, hazy trap beats, and grimy house basslines that reveal little interest in pandering to the pop masses.
Starboy has something for each individual, this is without a doubt, but it has nothing for everybody as a collective, a balance he managed on his first three releases.
Those wishing for a return to the Trilogy days will have to bit a tad longer; across 18 tracks, the Weeknd proves he's ready for primetime here, but there's still a sense of feeling out the new parameters.
It may showcase a cleaner sound, both in lyrical content and production, but its value for money at eighteen tracks comes at the cost of coherence.
It would help if more of the album were idiosyncratic that way, but as is, Starboy is still the sound of Tesfaye knowing he has what it takes to be a major figure in pop music for a very long time.
As the Weeknd tries to find himself in that overlap while defending his spot atop the charts, he ends up losing much of the best quality of his music: the unflinching look at consequences of his lifestyle, the gradual physical and spiritual corrosion.
Beauty Behind the Madness managed to smuggle sleaze into the mainstream by refining Tesfaye’s pop songcraft, even as it doubled down on the darkness. Starboy eases up on both fronts, recycling melodies, ideas, and even whole songs while presenting a sanitized version of the Weeknd that often lacks any real sense of perspective.
Unsure whether to cravenly embrace the kind of pop stardom that gets you on the shortlist for the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice awards or throw caution to the wind and do something more interesting artistically. Starboy hedges its bets and tries to do both. You can see why, but it makes for a curiously uneven album.
Starboy moves closer to the dying center of dance-pop, digging for something new in a field of bones.
Like Eminem and Kanye West, Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye capitalises on his lack of social graces.
Starboy doesn’t just double down on his signature kiss-and-tell-and-then-get-upset-about-it style, though, it tells you over and over and over again something that you’ve known and understood for years. At 18 tracks deep, that’s, well, alarming.
At 18 tracks, the album is a "contracted edition" playlist toolkit ... When pared down to its ten best songs, Starboy sounds like Tesfaye's most accomplished work.
Deep into the album it becomes a slog, with too much banal, forgettable fluff like ‘Attention’, ‘Nothing Without You’ and ‘Die For You’ (this honestly goes, “I would die for you / I would lie for you”).
Any apparent growth here ... is really just the cementing of a process begun on Kiss Land and perfected on Beauty Behind the Madness, remodeling an artistically marginal, genuinely interesting figure of musical menace into a toothless celebrity version thereof, espousing the same nihilistic themes in far cushier surroundings.
At 18 tracks, Starboy delivers some pop gems, but its last third falters with a string of schmaltzy ballads eventually rescued by the Daft Punk-assisted closer.
For longtime fans that believe the Weeknd is one of the major R&B artists of the decade, Starboy will ultimately seem like a disappointment.
The Weeknd follows up last year's Beauty Behind the Madness with an album that's just as much of a roller coaster in terms of style and quality.
Unable to elicit more than a shrug for most of its runtime, the record is just one more passable pop album in a year that really didn’t need another.
Long since shorn of the xx-style ‘indie R&B’ minimalism that defined those early mixtapes, Tesfaye continues to sound as if he has no idea what it is that he wants to do, while still managing to stumble over a couple of commercially-friendly songs that will keep his name amongst the movers and shakers.
Unfortunately, The Weeknd has acquired the qualities of salt in the r'n'b gastronomy: it makes the dishes tastier, but it's bad for health.
Starboy brings a mesmerizing sound with a really luxurious, supple groove of sparkling electronica and sinuous with melodic vocals, but unfortunately it doesn't reach its maximum potential, after the interlude there are a lot of songs that are fillers that just don't sound completely original or creative, at least compared to the first part of the album.
The highlights of this album are definitely the collaborations with Daft Punk that bring an innovative and captivating sound, I would like ... read more
When I listened to the beginning of the Starboy album, I wondered why it was so undervalued.
However, the question was solved only after listening to the entire tracklist. There are many good tracks, but there are also quite a few songs that are repetitive and lacking ideas. The album Starboy had sufficient potential, and The Weeknd made a bold attempt here, but unfortunately did not meet that expectation.
Highlights : Starboy, A Lonely Night, True Colors or Party Monster
This album is good and that's about... it. Sure Starboy and Party Monster are two tracks that really stand out to me but this almost feels like a prelude of what's to come. Abel just isn't quite there yet here
The Weeknd's second mainstream album somewhat keeps the bar where it was set with bbtm but the same problem shows on this album too but this time even more noticeably it is really inconsistent this has some off Abel's better cuts on the record but it is mostly just filled and streched out with simply good (at best) songs but all together it's good
1 | Starboy 3:50 feat. Daft Punk | 91 |
2 | Party Monster 4:09 | 82 |
3 | False Alarm 3:40 | 78 |
4 | Reminder 3:38 | 81 |
5 | Rockin’ 3:52 | 74 |
6 | Secrets 4:25 | 82 |
7 | True Colors 3:26 | 74 |
8 | Stargirl Interlude 1:51 feat. Lana Del Rey | 72 |
9 | Sidewalks 3:51 feat. Kendrick Lamar | 82 |
10 | Six Feet Under 3:57 | 70 |
11 | Love To Lay 3:43 | 73 |
12 | A Lonely Night 3:40 | 77 |
13 | Attention 3:17 | 65 |
14 | Ordinary Life 3:41 | 72 |
15 | Nothing Without You 3:18 | 68 |
16 | All I Know 5:21 feat. Future | 60 |
17 | Die For You 4:20 | 85 |
18 | I Feel It Coming 4:29 feat. Daft Punk | 91 |
#5 | / | Digital Spy |
#11 | / | Pigeons & Planes |
#17 | / | Les Inrocks |
#21 | / | Billboard |
#40 | / | Complex |
#41 | / | Variance |
#84 | / | Noisey |