Jams Only

“I miss the old Weeknd…He’s so poppy now”

We get it, The Weeknd has gone pop and for anyone that wasn’t sure after BBTM, this new single is a clear sign that he has no plans of going back to the RnB crooner we all loved any time soon.

This week, the new King of Pop released his lead single (and haircut) Starboy for his upcoming album of the same name, and it’s definitely a banger. Or rather, a pop banger, meaning we’ll be hearing it on the radio until Mariah Carey’s, “All I Want for Christmas” makes it’s annual rounds.

The song features the french electric house duo Daftpunk and follows the archetypal verse-chorus song structure of today’s pop music with the Weeknd’s signature vocals and sing rap flow. The sound is in line with the music of his triple platinum album Beauty Behind the Madness but for someone who once hated major chord progressions it’s very easy to pin him as a sellout. Although, if we listen closely, is he really saying anything different from before?

The singer we remember was doing lines off glass tables in rooms full of attractive women. Now he’s just upgraded to doing lines off $20,000 ebony tables in a room with a supermodel. His verses still read like profanity filled brag rap lyrics and those hip-hop elements are essentially what’s going to keep me interested. He still sings about the life we wish we were crazy brave enough to live, but now it’s for a broader audience.

I get it, a lot of us are hurt because the Weeknd has basically become “the dab” of RnB music and is probably going to be exploited on Ellen Degeneres by people who can’t clap on beat, but if this is what he wants, so be it.

Like it or hate it, this is what we’ve done. He’s a mothafuckin’ starboy and he’s here to stay.

On a scale of 1-The Hills this gets an 8.3.

“Main bitch out of your league too, ah/ Side bitch out of your league too, ah”