The Weeknd ‎– Dawn FM

By George Moraitis

Label:	XO – 00602445021154, Republic Records – 00602445021154
Format:	CD, Album, Stereo
Country:	Europe
Released:	28 Jan 2022
Genre:	Pop, Electronic, Funk / Soul
Style:	Contemporary R&B, Spoken Word, Synthwave, New Wave, Disco

Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, known professionally as ‘the Weeknd’, is a Canadian singer-songwriter and record producer who is among the world’s best-selling music artists. With over 75 million records sold, Tesfaye holds several streaming & Billboard chart records and headlined the Super Bowl LV halftime show on February 7, 2021.

Many of his songs (eg. Can’t feel my face, Starboy, I feel it coming, Pray for me, A lonely night, Blinding lights) have become modern pop anthems, drawing comparisons to pop icons like Michael Jackson & Prince.

Personally, what draws me to him as an artist has nothing to do with his commercial success. I am fascinated with how he manages to weave dark lyricism and melancholic subject matter drawn from personal experience into music that sounds so up-beat, positive and inspirational.

Born in Toronto to Ethiopian immigrant parents who separated when he was very young, Tesfaye was raised by his mother & grandmother in challenging circumstances. He began smoking marijuana at age eleven, and later used other drugs, often shoplifting to supplement his drug use. Music became his salvation and in 2009, he started to anonymously release music on YouTube and the rest as they say… is history.

Dawn FM is the Weeknd’s fifth album and in some ways it’s a kind of concept album. Throughout the album, Jim Carrey plays a blissed-out radio announcer for the fictitious Dawn FM radio station. His benign, artificially reassuring tone serves as an eerie backdrop, contrasting with the uneasy themes of the songs that follow.

In interviews, he has said that the album plays like listening to a kind of adult contemporary radio station as you sit in a traffic jam in the tunnel, only the tunnel is purgatory and the light at the end of the tunnel is death. There’s a degree of intellectual congruence about his message – he doesn’t espouse half–baked theories on the meaning of life as much as he points & prods at the looming dread and terror inherent to it.

That’s what makes the album so interesting to me. The subject matter is unusual, challenging and deeply personal yet experiencing the music is uplifting, fun and engaging. The opening track is perfect. Among the sound of layered synths the Weeknd sings:

“And I need something to hold
Make me believe in make-beliefs
Cause after the light, is it dark?
Is it dark all alone?
All alone”

Shortly after, the dulcet toned radio announcer (Carrey) informs us:

“You’ve been in the dark for way too long
It’s time to walk into the light
And accept your fate with open arms.
Scared? Don’t worry
We’ll be there to hold your hand and guide you through this painless transition.”

The song ‘Gasoline’ then launches with its energised beats promising a good time, yet he sings about setting himself on fire.

“It’s 5 a.m.
I’m nihilist
I know there’s nothing after this” he drones in a disarming British accent.

“The only thing I understand
Is zero sum of tenderness
Oh, baby, please just hold me close
Make me believe there’s more to live”

The complexity of the arrangement, the British accent, the Nihilistic expression and the yearning for hope is indicative of the journey this album takes you on, and it’s just the beginning.

The next track ‘How Do I Make You Love Me’ showcases a panoramic beat with an avant-garde catchy dance sound followed by the five-minute ‘Take My Breath’ which sounds epic but then develops an inherent tension as he fights for air engulfed by the propulsive beat.

He negotiates boundaries with a lover on “Sacrifice,” switching between adoration and rebellion:
“Uh, every time you try to fix me
I know you’ll never find that missing piece
When you cry and say you miss me
I’ll lie and tell you that I’ll never leave”

There’s a desire to fix things but also an admission that he’s already compromised. He cycles through paranoia and jealousy, only making promises when he feels threatened.

‘A Tale By Quincy’ finds Quincy Jones in a spoken interlude, expressing his introspection around life, success, self-exposure and the cost. Now there’s someone I’d like to have sitting at a dinner party….
“Looking back is a bitch, isn’t it?”

I feel that the album peaks with the next track ‘Out of time’ before the journey changes tack. He wallows in regret and what could have been, showcasing his falsetto against a backdrop of lush orchestration.
“Say I love you girl, but I’m out of time
Now I can’t keep you from loving him
You made up your mind.”

Soon the radio announcer chimes in:

“Soon you’ll be healed, forgiven and refreshed
Free from all trauma, pain, guilt, and shame
You may even forget your own name”

For much of the record he flails between articulating a cynicism towards romance and defeating it, like on the ballad ‘Starry Eyes.’

“Let me be there, let me be there for your heart
Let me be there, I can be there until you’re whole”

The mood changes but there are many interesting moments to come. ‘Every Angel Is Terrifying’ is a monologue about the afterlife and the punchy ‘Less Than Zero’ brings us back to a familiar vibe.

“And no, I can’t shake this feeling that crawls in my bed
I try to hide it, but I know you know me
I try to fight it, but I’d rather be free”

The concept of a Dawn FM radio station facilitates a canvas that allows the Weeknd to experiment beyond the confines of his previous work. Past songs charted the course of a single distressing event. Here, he aims for more grandiosity. The sound is decadent because it’s so divergent; each song is sumptuously saturated with instrumental eccentricities. The music mirrors the songwriter’s unease – the buffed, sharp electronic sheen is occasionally ruptured by moments of discord.

I feel that this is the Weeknd’s most ambitious project in sound and scope, and the most thoughtful, melodic, cohesive record of his career. Part of the thrill comes from hearing him take himself a little less seriously, like the twinkle in his voice as he sings Dawn FM station jingles in accentuated harmony. There are also all the little annotations throughout: Quincy Jones detailing how childhood anguish destroyed his adult relationships; the Weeknd reciting a line from Rilke’s “Duino Elegies,” murmuring that “Beauty is the terror we endure.”

I feel that this ideology is laced within his previous body of work and is at the very heart of this album – the fear that anything worth having will eventually degrade. One may ask that since everything is impermanent, what’s the point of anything? Of living? The answer could be that the pursuit of beauty makes everything worthwhile, the search for the sublime, the will to turn a grid-locked slide towards destruction into something transcendent.

On the surface, it can be reasoned that Dawn FM is about pointlessness and annihilation. However, the Weeknd weaves a musical tapestry that simultaneously suggests that helplessness is only a mindset. By transforming into this mysterious elderly character (album cover) and creating retro-inspired music through the concept of a Dawn FM radio station scene, he’s telling a story of a character’s journey through the phases of purgatory and the eventual acceptance of one’s state of being. From his perspective, he’s telling us to abandon regret, ignore shame and to find bliss out of the chaos, as much as we can.

Enjoy!

Track Listing

1. Dawn FM 1:36
2. Gasoline 3:32
3. How Do I Make You Love Me? 3:34
4. Take My Breath 5:39
5. Sacrifice 3:08
6. A Tale By Quincy 1:36
7. Out Of Time 3:34
8. Here We Go… Again 3:29
9. Best Friend (Interlude) 2:43
10. Is There Someone Else? 3:19