The Weeknd - The Hills

Multitude of things that suck when an artist you like reaches a new-found level of popularity:

1. The phrase 'knew them before/when they were cool' is so done-to-death and interpolated that there's no way of genuinely acknowledging the fact without being made out as a jerk.
2. First impressions last, and not much hurts quite as much as hearing someone dismiss an artist when they've not heard the full breadth of what they have to offer. Even worse is when you're held in contempt for identifying as a fan because the artist will now be first identified by the popular stuff so that's the stuff you like.
3. As a fan of the artist, it so commonly rings true that the reason they become popular is because they've managed to dilute their sound to fit in, taking away what made you like them in the first place. This makes the 2nd item even more frustrating.

On item 1, one thing that rarely gets enough attention is how much that phrase is really just a well-earned victory lap. Because to support an unknown artist is to go against the crowd. It is to potentially cop ridicule for your unpopular choice. It is to have to accept (for the time being) that the artist you like is never going to be part of the conversation. Heck, I fashioned part of my username on social media after a song by an artist I like. It had to be that artist because even if they're not my favourite artist, they stand out so egregiously for being so much less popular than other artists I like just as much. Perhaps most annoying is the fact that no one really wants to change the current state, which manifests itself in a lot of 'hmm nah's when you try to spread the word about the artist.

Really nobody wins in these cases. Because for the person who was initially dismissive, should they remember when that was the case, they have to find a way to get through the inevitable conversation underlying why they were sleeping on them in the first place, or if desperate enough, pretend they were never in the wrong just to save their own skin.

The main thing to take away from this is to not just like something because it's popular. The moment you do that, you are instantly, relatively not liking something because it's not popular. And of course, it's the combined force of all these stalwarts that does nothing but prevent new voices from breaking through.

Anyway hardly any of this applies to The Weeknd. Dude had Drake backing him from the very start, if anything he could have less help. I just use him as an example to try and articulate the weirdness of being a fan since "House of Balloons" and then seeing him knock himself off the top of the Billboard Hot 100. More importantly though, The Weeknd being popular means that by saying this here, more people will likely read it lol.

So while the first point doesn't apply, the other two certainly do. Because really The Weeknd was in a sweet spot in the middle, where he was popular enough that he could make a splash through playing his cards right because he had the support, but he wasn't popular enough to stop him from reaching the ears of people who really don't get his whole vibe and the context to it. My exasperation at his success isn't just as a whiplash sort of thing, it's because the music he was making just was not suited to mainstream acceptance. I mean, he made dark, twisted R&B songs about drugs & sex and didn't at all paint them in a pleasant way. It's a shtick he's stuck with from the very beginning. The character he plays isn't pleasant either, which is important to note because it would be near indefencible if played straight.

This can all apply to "The Hills" funnily enough. Because contrary to the idea that an artist can only become popular by watering down their edges, this smash hit is so akin to his music of old that it amazes me. Granted, it's a bit higher budget than before, but the fact that something like this can be the most heard song on US radio for an entire month amazes me. Heck, a third of the songs that went to #1 on the US radio chart in 2015 were by The Weeknd.

While better than his last project, I'm not totally sure "Beauty Behind The Madness" really makes the grade, but this is undoubtedly a highlight on it. One that I was initially weary of due to the high pitched vocals & heavy bass in the chorus not really feeling like they mixed well at all, but it slowly sunk in with me. It's a serious earworm that accomplishes that while sounding quite unlike anything else, meaning you have to give it attention.

In short, I'm happy for him, I love this track, and more people should listen to his 2011 stuff.