House Of Balloons

About

When <i>House of Balloons</i> emerged from its vaporous cloud of internet mystery in early 2011, it wasn’t clear that The Weeknd was about to help shift the course of mainstream pop. If anything, the album’s pervasive moodiness seemed to work contrary to the pleasure and liberation pop usually promised. It was’t a party album—it was an after-party album. And like any after-party, whatever fun it had to offer was tempered by the queasy sense that the fun had already been <i>had</i>—and that burning the candle in hopes of more would only reveal how desperate and sad it all wa. As for Abel Tesfaye, the man in the middle? Ye, his voice was beautiful: High, sweet, and fragile, with a way of fluttering around its upper reaches (a method he said he learned from listening to Ethiopian pop as a kid). But when your idea of romance is “Bring your love, baby, I could bring my shame/Bring the drug, baby, I could bring my pain” (“Wicked Games”), it doesn’t exactly make you sound like a fun date. Interesting, sure. But, like, who would want to hang out with this guy? .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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