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Abel Tesfaye Essay

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Abel Tesfaye, other known as The Weeknd, is a newly arising artist. The 25 year old singer became a roaring sensation after his release of a trio of highly-acclaimed mixtapes. Those being House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence. During the time these were released, Tesfaye was completely mysterious, nobody knowing his real identity. This worked immaculately well with the themes of his music, dark, sulky songs about meaningless sex and drug use. It was a more revealing, less-glamorous side of R&B compared to the mainstream of the genre, this making the Weeknd the next big thing. He eventually revealed his identity and was consistently making it to the top ten of the Billboard charts with all his songs. He didn't seem like every other …show more content…

Now that he has gained attention, he's making music that would have been very unexpected years ago. It all started in 2012, with the debut of Trilogy, a remastered collection of his original 2011 mixtapes. A year after, he released his official debut album, Kiss Land, which was similar to his earlier work. However, many fans felt the more polished version took away from what initially made them latch onto Tesfaye's work on songs like "Wicked Games." But to grow you must move forward. Tesfaye made a 180 and changed roles into a pop star when he released "Earned It" in 2014, lead single from the soundtrack to Fifty Shades Of Grey. This song has a much different vibe then many of The Weeknd's other songs, this being more symphonic and magnificent. It was apparent that he was moving out of his traditional and adapted sound of alternative-R&B to reach a bigger, more general audience. "Can't Feel My Face" was more out of unlike him. This song having a funky, pop sound to it, produced by super-producer Max Martin sounds more like Michael Jackson than anything on past mixtapes. Tesfaye sounded happy on that track, an emotion that he rarely, if ever, showed before. He even announced a collaboration with pop singer Ed Sheeran, who is on the other side of the

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