Watch: The Weeknd – The Birds (Part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCaZznXphMw

Okay I admit it, I guess I do suffer from a bout of male envy when it comes to Toronto’s The Weeknd, less popularly known as Abel Tesfay.

From the amount of hype and numerous posts we featured the past week on the R&B slickster’s second mixtape Thursday it’s safe to say all of us here at TLOBF do. What’s not to love and hate in equal measure about the tortured lethario, oh so poorly surrounded by ample amounts of money and women?

Debut self-release House of Balloons landed on our laptops out of seemingly nowhere, although the involvement of Drake may mean the drop was more calculated than it first seemed. It wasn’t just the smooth melodies or deeply felt bass that made our hearts and minds swell with a mixed feeling of admiration and resentment but also the equally conflicting lyricism on display, seeing Abel switch between unashamed materialism and its causal and consequential feelings of emptiness and detachment.

Lines like “Bring your love baby I could bring my shame / Bring the drugs baby I could bring my pain” fell like a brick and cemented his place as a hipster treasure as much as his almost certain future destiny to be a huge mainstream success.

Thursday, our review of which can be found here, followed the same slick suit as its predecessor but with even sleeker production and a first feature from his famous friend. It feels like this is The Weeknd’s long-predicted ascent to the charts, which will surely come when his next mixtape Echoes of Silence drops later this year or by the time his debut album gets a label commission.

Here we have a maybe-official-but-probably-not visual accompaniment to Thursday highlight ‘The Birds (Part 1)’. The video shows a pretty ballerina apply lipstick, smoke and generally have a bit of a nervous breakdown, evidently taking cues from Black Swan or maybe Kanye’s live show. Either way, if it is an official flick then it shows The Weeknd a lot more polished than before but without losing any of the alluring, mysterious appeal.

Now let’s try to keep ourselves busy until Echoes of Silence. Or the video to ‘The Birds (Part 2)’, perhaps. Here’s to hoping.