Artist: The Weeknd

Album: Dawn FM

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Background

From homelessness to one of the biggest artists on the planet, Toronto’s Abel Tesfaye quickly gained a cult following early in his career after releasing a series of mixtapes, House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence, which would later be known as the Trilogy mixtapes, and would gain legendary status among early 2010s R&B. Only four years later, The Weeknd would release his second studio album, Beauty Behind the Madness, which would begin his elevation beyond a cult hero into pop superstardom and a Super Bowl performance following the success of his fourth studio album, After Hours, which charted at number one on the Billboard 200 for four straight weeks, spawned three number one Hot 100 singles in “Heartless”, “Blinding Lights” and “Save Your Tears,” and is currently certified Triple Platinum by the RIAA.

Dawn FM is a sequel to After Hours, and the middle album in a supposed trilogy that will be concluded with The Weeknd’s next project. In After Hours, especially given what we know now, it can be assumed that he was portraying the end of a life. That album’s cover, a bloodied and somewhat unhinged Abel Tesfaye, shows the end of a life. Dawn FM follows the death of whoever is portrayed in After Hours, and follows them through their journery in purgatory.

Review

Sonically, After Hours feels like if you took the 80s synth pop sounds of Starboy and After Hours, refind them, and added a layer of melancholy to it. The album is consistent, but not to a point where it becomes repetitive; it holds a very clear sound full of synth and reverb that sets a tone, yet every song has its own spirit.

Legendary comedian and actor Jim Carrey sets the tone for the purgatory theme through the album right from the start, with its eponymous title track. If The Weeknd’s allusions to being out of the light following After Hours’ famous “Blinding Lights” weren’t clear enough, Carrey begins the radio show-theme of Dawn FM with a clear-as-day welcome to purgatory to the listener, asking them to walk into the light as he “guides you through this painless transition.”

Gasoline serves as the listener’s introduction to the Dawn FM experience, as The Weeknd sings about his apathy towards his death, as well as his feeling of nihilism. The upbeat tone of the song contrasts with the uncharacteristically deep pitch of The Weeknd’s vocals, which pair well with his carelessness for his life.

The following tracks, “How Do I Make You Love Me?” and the album’s lead single, “Take My Breath,” allude to some classic Weeknd themes of drugs and sex. “How Do I Make You Love Me?” reads as an effort to make a woman love him by means of drugs. The intro to this song leading up to the drop right before the hook stands as one of my favorite Weeknd moments in his entire career. “Take My Breath” continues this theme, although it is unclear whether the song references doing drugs (specifically nitrous, if the music video is anything to go by), breath play with a lover, or even both in a personification of drugs similar to “Can’t Feel My Face.” These two songs are also an excellent example of the use of transitions throughout the album, as “Take My Breath’s” extended edition didn’t sound as good as a single, but sounds incredible in the album with the “How Do I Make You Love Me?” outro leading into it.

“Sacrifice” is a typical Weeknd track, featuring lyrics about being unable to give up the fast life for a relationship. The verses tell the listener at times that he cannot compromise for love, even though he has tried and failed. The themes of this song lead into the album’s first interlude, the absolutely heartbreaking “A Tale by Quincy.” The legendary Quincy Jones shares his upbringing and the source for his troublesome behavior, that being the removal of his mother from his life as she suffered from mental illness, as well as the ongoing lack of a motherly figure in his life following this. Quincy ends the interlude with a warning that “looking back is a bitch,” reminding the listener that looking back into your past to uncover your present and future can be theraputic, but also extremely painful, and as a listener with an unavailable parent, the interlude gives me chills without fail to this day, even after nearly a full year and dozens of listens.

Quincy’s interlude leads into my personal favorite track on the album, “Out of Time,” a regretful track that features The Weeknd singing over city pop production (the world needs more R&B and city pop crossover, by the way) about his behavior in a relationship that ended poorly despite his desire to love. “A Tale by Quincy” sets up the theme of failure to be a good partner due to past trauma, and being aware of it, yet feeling an aversion to correct it due to the same trauma. This feeling in itself feels like purgatory, and Jim Carrey’s well-placed second interlude at the end of the track builds on this, warning the listener not to go anywhere as they head towards the light.

Carrey’s interlude leads into “Here We Go… Again,” a brief track featuring Tyler, The Creator. In all honesty, I’ve always thought this song felt a little out of place in the tracklist. The tone of the song is a lot lighter than most of the album surrounding it, and the Tyler feature (one of two controversial features on the album) can come off as a little underwhelming, especially compared to his recent output.

“Best Friends” is the low point of the album for me personally. It fits a bit better than “Here We Go… Again” for me, but it just feels bland compared to the rest of the album (an opinion I got triple ratioed for so maybe I’m wrong), but what it does have going for it is the best transition on the album. The song ends with a little Dawn FM radio jingle that morphs into “Is There Someone Else?”

“Is There Someone Else?” combines the theme of regret from the last few tracks with the purgatory theme, as he laments over a dream girl, real or not, who he worries isn’t completely available to him. Throughout the track, as well as the following interlude, “Starry Eyes” (which begs further questions about if this girl is real, imaginatory, or maybe even the personification of something else) features The Weeknd practically begging for this girl despite his acknowledgements that he doesn’t deserve to be close with her. “Starry Eyes” serves as the outro for “Is There Someone Else?,” and The Weeknd’s apathy seen in “Gasoline,” and throughout After Hours, is blatant at the end here, as he desires to be broken by this girl if it means he can keep her close.

We take a brief break at “Every Angel is Terrifying,” an interlude that contains spoken word poetry and advertising behind some distorted yet beautiful production. The Weeknd reads a translated excerpt from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies, describing the beauty as well as horror of the angels that many people follow so deeply as divine beings. This is followed up by another radio break, an advertisement for the afterlife (and potentially the After Life, if The Weeknd is hinting at his next album here as well). This advertisement shares similar ideas with the previous poem, including a particularly unsettling line about a customer that says they “can’t keep their eyes off the screen.” The pushy MC’s description of the afterlife make it seem like a scam, as opposed to the haven that some make it out to be, which reflects The Weeknd’s belief that there is no afterlife, a belief that he shared with us from the very first track.

“Don’t Break My Heart” feels like the end of The Weeknd’s journey to purgatory, as well as a cry for help as he’s been broken so many times. The soft, distorted vocals in the song pair with The Weeknd’s claims of feeling paralyzed and crucified to follow up on “Every Angel is Terrifying’s” tone and content. The idea of angels being too much for mortal man to process continues here as well with the “I see every ice/eye’s/eyes on you” line, which could be interpreted as her jewelry, her being the center of attention in the room, or her literally having every eye on her.

“I Heard You’re Married” is my last complaint for this review. While I do enjoy the song, it once again feels tonally out of place, especially following such a somber song, plus the undertones that the entrace to the afterlife is coming. “I Heard You’re Married” is a hard dance track about The Weeknd’s desires to move on from a girl he knows is involved with somebody else (and as I’m writing this I realize if we wanted to get really creative with it, we could interpret this as letting go of past pains on the journey through purgatory, but that’s a bit of a reach). Lil Wayne delivers the second and final feature of the album on this song, which has caused division among fans. I personally don’t think its as bad as they say, but “no hub cap” is rough.

The album wraps up with “Less Than Zero,” a beautiful track that sees The Weeknd accepting his failures in love on his way to the end. He consoles her, or maybe just himself, by saying this girl tried her best with him, but he has accepted that this is who he is and he is ready to be free, and he won’t hide the dark truth, even if it makes him look like the worst. It is here that we come to a close with a final poem from Jim Carrey in “Phantom Regret by Jim.” Carrey’s longform spoken word shares a message of acceptance; you will find Heaven when you let go of the regret you carry and find peace in yourself, not outside sources or through your vices, and maybe for The Weeknd in the story, acceptance that he has passed already, and that there is indeed something after this. Nothing in this life matters once you reach the afterlife except yourself in that moment.

Final Thoughts

While Dawn FM may not have the gargantuan commercial hits that came with After Hours, it is an excellent body of work that follows a more linear tracklist and it definitely feels like a unique album in The Weeknd’s growing catalogue. After Hours, whether it was because of the timing of its release or just for the music itself, is an extremely memorable album for me and one of my favorites of all-time, and Dawn FM had some big shoes to fill following one of the biggest albums of 2020. Over the course of 2022, Dawn FM grew on me extremely hard, and I’ve had nearly every song on the album in my rotation throughout the year, with my favorites going back and forth between a few songs, and others randomly surprising me like I hadn’t heard them before (I was pretty low on “Gasoline” until I randomly couldn’t get it out of my head over the summer). Dawn FM is definitely up there with my favorite albums ever, and I think it has a good argument for some of The Weeknd’s best work post-Trilogy.

Favorite Lyrics

And if I finally die in peace, just wrap my body in these sheets

And pour out the gasoline, it don’t mean much to me

The Weeknd on “Gasoline”

We’re going back in time, I’d like to see you try

Unpacking thoughts through tunnels in your mind

I’ll fix you mushroom tea and cross the restless sea

Release yourself to escape reality

The Weeknd on “How Do I Make You Love Me?”

A quarter bill’ on on an off-year

Used to sing on lofts, but now we cruisin’ on a yacht, we clear

The Weeknd on “Here We Go… Again”

It’s okay, baby, I promise that I felt worse

Back then, I was starry-eyed, and now I’m so cynical

Baby, break me, kick me to the curb

The Weeknd on “Starry Eyes”

Top 5

Out of Time

Less Than Zero

Gasoline

How Do I Make You Love Me

Is There Someone Else?

Discussion Questions

How do you feel The Weeknd has handled After Hours and Dawn FM as concept albums thus far?

For Trilogy fans, have After Hours and Dawn FM gotten close to scratching that same itch for you, or has he still moved too far away from where his sound started?

What could the features have done better for you on this album, and what features would you rather have seen on which songs if you could choose?

What themes could potentially be covered in the hypothetical After Life album?