It seems only appropriate that, since the last time we saw The Weeknd’s mug on an album cover at the beginning of 2020, he has now opted to present us with his image in 2022 as haggard, old and utterly rundown. In short, a mirror of post-pandemic society. While After Hours was meant to highlight the perils of decadence in a La Dolce Vita sort of way, it ended up becoming merely a time marker of the end of an era. One in which partying not only felt “safe,” but wasn’t such a goddamn hassle (vaccine cards, COVID tests, etc.).
“It’s time to walk into the light and accept your fate with open arms,” Jim Carrey assures in his role as our DJ for the duration of the album. In some sense, it feels like he’s become the Christof in The Truman Show scenario as he seems to know way more about the puppet strings pulling our life than we do (then of course there are also elements of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in certain pieces of his dialogue). Being that The Weeknd has hosted his own radio show, Memento Mori, on Apple Music 1 since 2018, it’s clear he wanted to bring that unique quality of listening to the radio to Dawn FM. Indeed, it was so central to the concept that The Weeknd explained it as follows: “Picture the album being like the listener is dead. And they’re stuck in this purgatory state, which I always imagined would be like being stuck in traffic waiting to reach the light at the end of the tunnel. And while you’re stuck in traffic, they got a radio station playing in the car, with a radio host guiding you to the light and helping you transition to the other side. So it could feel celebratory, could feel bleak, however, you want to make it feel, but that’s what [Dawn FM] is for me.”
Although the motif is meant to be comforting—a promise of “hope,” if you will—it comes across as more sinister than anything else. Like a Black Mirror episode somehow involving a San Junipero setup, or The Weeknd sacrificing his youth as a grand metaphor for what the few remaining youths in the future will have to do in order to support a mostly elderly population on their backs. “Scared? Don’t worry. We’ll be there to hold your hand and guide you through this painless transition.” A likely story. And if this is what “hopeful” is meant to be in 2022, then goddamn have we lost all hope. At the same time, the allusions to death and passing on to “the other side” might not be as literal as we think. There are so many forms of death in this world, and almost all of them involve (re-)creation through destruction. Starting over, yet again. Which is exactly what one wishes this society would do re: its economic system. But anyway…
With the “trapped in traffic” motif established, it’s only natural that the next song should be called “Gasoline.” Drenched in the 80s synths and sounds we’ve come to expect from The Weeknd, with A-ha and Depeche Mode both cited as influences. Sure to reference the hour of dawn, The Weeknd commences, “It’s five a.m. my time again/I’ve soakin’ up the moon, can’t sleep/It’s five a.m. my time again/I’m calling and you know it’s me.” Here, The Weeknd sets it up once again to indicate his dependency not just on drugs, but a woman who enables (enAbels?) him. He also makes his first mention of a love for “breath play” on the record when he says, “I wrap my hands around your neck/You love it when I always squeeze.”
“You spin me ‘round” takes on a more macabre meaning than how Dead or Alive meant it, as The Weeknd adds, “So I can breathe.” As in: so he doesn’t end up choking on his vomit after passing out from all them drogas. Sweetly, he then insists, “And if I finally die in peace/Just wrap my body in these sheets/And pour out the gasolinе/It don’t mean much to me.”
His predilection for mentioning the dawn and how nothing really means anything is further manifested in the lyric, “It’s five a.m., I’m nihilist/I know therе’s nothing after this/Obsessing over aftermaths/Apocalypse and hopelessness/The only thing I understand Is zero sum of tenderness.” In short, you get back nothing of what you put in, whether that refers to a relationship of life itself. And “in this game called life” (“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life”), we are not free.” This, too, adds to the eerie sense of Dawn FM and its DJ being far more in control that the listener. And in this regard, like The Truman Show (and another Carrey movie, Bruce Almighty), it also seems to offer some vague allegory for “God” and humanity.
“How Do I Make You Love Me?” reminds us that “we’re goin’ back in time.” As is the case with most of The Weeknd’s sonic landscapes. And why wouldn’t we want to go back to a decade like the 80s, even despite being fraught with its own novel virus and set of issues? At least people weren’t completely dead inside due to what Jewel would call “the world of post-modern fad.” And that’s a large part of what The Weeknd continues to address in his work. The quest to “feel something,” even when experimenting with feeling nothing through his drug use. Upbeat and sure to make A-ha proud, The Weeknd asks the question we all do when we encounter the inevitable instant of unrequited love: “How do I make you love me?/How do I make you fall for me?/How do I make you want me/And make it last eternally?
Although “Take My Breath,” the first single from the record, still feels like a carryover from After Hours (as does the video), it more fully acknowledges The Weeknd’s love for erotic asphyxiation. Which is why the breathy noises he makes at the end of “How Do I Make You Love Me?” (ones to rival Britney’s breath work on “I’m A Slave 4 U”) lead so seamlessly into it. With the Cliqua-directed video featuring The Weeknd wearing an oxygen mask at da club (which, honestly, probably isn’t that far off), he seems to be taking up the mantle from Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) in Blue Velvet. Finally given its full glory without being presented in the radio edit format, its moodiness has a sonic vibe that mimics Daft Punk’s “Da Funk.” And, considering The Weeknd’s fondness for that now-defunct duo, it makes sense. The longer version of the song also allows The Weeknd to get “subtly” breathy toward the end as well.
The second single and video from Dawn FM, “Sacrifice,” follows “Take My Breath” and, in many ways, its accompanying visual seems to be a sequel to the latter. Never one to shy away from alluding to being from Toronto (as he also did on After Hours’ “Snowchild”), The Weeknd opens with the lines, “I was born in a city/Where the winter nights don’t ever sleep/So this life’s always with me/The ice inside my veins will never bleed.” Punctuated by a frenetic, uptempo beat, this track, too, has very Daft Punk-ish vibes, which is likely attributable to being produced by Swedish House Mafia. Laying the “positive vibes” on the thickest he ever will for this album, The Weeknd insists, “When you feel likе it’s the end/…life is still worth living/Yeah, this life is still worth living.” Although he might be referencing a near-death experience while on a drug bender, it also applies to the sense of purgatory most have been in since the start of Miss Rona.
The Weeknd goes against some previous sentiments on both Dawn FM and After Hours when he decides all he can really offer is to “fuck like we are friends/But don’t be catchin’ feelings/Don’t be out here catchin’ feelings ’cause/I sacrificed/Your love for more of the night/I try to put up a fight/Can’t tie me down.” Apparently, he’s gone from the feeling that a girl is his missing piece to this “I gotta do me” sentiment. Such is the fickleness of men, who have the gall to say, after sacrificing nothing, “I don’t want to sacrifice/For your love, I try/I don’t wanna sacrifice/But I love my time.” Time, evidently, that allows for eventual reflection on fuckboy behavior. Which is where the interlude (some argue the first of the record, while others might contend “Dawn FM” is its own interlude) called “A Tale By Quincy” comes in.
If you’re wondering who else could be named Quincy besides Quincy Jones, you’d be right to assume it’s him as he explains that being raised wrong tends to make you emotionally stunted in not only subsequent romantic relationships, but in trying to raise kids your damn self. Quincy is unflinching in his assessment of his broken childhood, discussing everything from seeing his mother being taken away in a straightjacket when he was just seven years old to his “evil stepmother” telling him that he didn’t need a mother anyway. The final consensus? “Whenever I got too close to a woman, I would cut her off. Part of that was vindictive and partially based on fear. But it was also totally subconscious.” In addition to, “Looking back is a bitch, isn’t it?”
The interlude segues into the slow jam that is “Out of Time” (not to be confused with the Oasis track), a song that seems rife for an 80s high school dance. Co-produced by all of the majors that lent their talent to the record, Max Martin, Oscar Holter and OPN, the laid-back tone is in contrast to the urgency of The Weeknd’s message, one that admits he’s out of time for trying to win back the girl he loves as she’s moved on to someone new. Of course, this is antithetical to his “I don’t give a fuck” aura on “Sacrifice.” But as Quincy explained, this kind of erratic, emotionally unstable behavior is merely a by-product of unresolved childhood trauma. His insistence that if her new guy should fuck up in any little way, she should just come back to him (“If he mess up just a little/Baby, you know my line/If you don’t trust him a little/Then come right back, girl, come right back”) also negates After Hours’ “Scared to Live” sentiments when he admits and urges, “I know things will never be the same/Time we lost will never be replaced/I’m the reason you forgot to love/So don’t be scared to live again/Be scared to live again.” In other words, this bia should not squander any more time or feelings on him. And so, on After Hours, it seemed The Weeknd was more comfortable with being “out of time,” but then, perhaps it’s because the two albums represent different sides of life. On the one, feeling as though you have it all ahead of you—using the allegory of when the night is still young—and, on the other, seeing the sun rise, so to speak, only to understand you’ve wasted everything (especially your money) in the haze of a drug-addled stupor. Coming from two different time sensibilities on each album is part of what makes them yin and yang companion pieces. Not quite “sister albums,” as Taylor deemed folklore and evermore, but maybe “evil twin albums.” At one point on “Out of Time,” The Weeknd declares, alluding to Toronto loosely again re: the ice in his veins, “There’s so much trauma in my life/I’ve been so cold to the ones who loved me, baby.”
Maybe that’s why so many women have said of taking The Weeknd back, “Here We Go… Again.” Which also happens to be the name of the song on Dawn FM featuring everyone’s favorite critical darling Tyler, The Creator. As the title suggests, it pertains to how most end up hopelessly entranced by the very glamor and seduction of falling in love over and over again—no matter how many times they’ve been burned. Alluding to A-list celebrities from the start, The Weeknd declares, “Strike a pose (with my kinfolk).” Which is apropos when taking into account that Madonna only recently purchased his Hidden Hills property. And Angelina Jolie would certainly know a thing or two about striking poses, with there being no denying The Weeknd wants us to think about her when he gloats, “My new girlfriend, she a movie star.” Even if some might beg to differ with the question: is she though? Whatever, she’s way famous. And fame, too, has always been a key ingredient of The Weeknd’s subject material for songwriting. He’s also sure to prove he’s well-versed in cinema history by providing the not-soon-to-be-forgotten simile, “I loved her right, make her scream like Neve Campbell.” How well-timed for the mid-January release of the latest installment in the Scream saga.
The Weeknd’s ego and braggadocio is also in tip-top shape on “Best Friends,” a song that feels like it should be retroactively added into the soundtrack for No Strings Attached or Friends With Benefits. With a backbeat that sounds like a more polished version of what Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX used for “Fancy,” the rhythm defies its listener not to bob their head along as they sit in traffic, awaiting that light at the end of the tunnel. Seeming to reference both Joy Division and Britney, The Weeknd explains that he can only offer friendship (in addition to boning) because he’s already “been a part of toxic love/It tore us apart.” Sure, sure. Or he’s just in a commitment-phobic mood.
Ironically succeeded by “Is There Someone Else?,” it seems only The Weeknd is allowed to be obsessive and desiring of a real and profound relationship. Getting real Michael Jackson-y (as he always does) with the little high-pitched voice effect in the background (reminiscent of the one in “P.Y.T.”), The Weeknd puts it plainly when he demands, “Oh, is there someone else or not?/‘Cause I wanna keep you close I don’t wanna lose my spot/‘Cause I need to know If you’re hurting him, or you’re hurting me/If I ain’t with you, I don’t wanna be/Is there someone else or not?” The invisible transition between this and “Starry Eyes” is all part of the “radio mix” experience. Appropriately, this is also the song that The Weeknd chose to soundtrack his trailer for the album, assuring fans and the proverbial girl of his dreams alike, “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.” In other words, like Lana said, “Nothing scares me anymore.”
Except, clearly, angels, as The Weeknd makes the case that “Every Angel is Terrifying.” Which, when not falsely depicted as they usually are in pop culture, is pretty accurate. After all, Lucifer was an angel. And, speaking of the Dark Lord, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina has it right in the episode “The Missionaries” when they depict the “witch hunters” a.k.a. angels as truly wrathful and vindictive beings to be immensely feared. Using Ranier Maria Wilke’s words as his own, The Weeknd pulls a Lana Del Rey with Walt Whitman in quoting the poetry, “Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’ order?/Even if they pressed me against their heart, I’d be consumed/For beauty is the terror we endure/While we stand and wonder, we’re annihilated/Every angel is terrifying.” The song/interlude then digresses into what amounts to a Tourette’s-inspired barrage of advertising cliches that include, “Technically and visually stunning,” “A compelling work of science fiction,” “A suspenseful еxposé” and “Cinema like you’ve nеver seen it before.” All of these votes of confidence are intended to promote After Life, which, again doesn’t seem to offer the sense of hope The Weeknd claims to want to give to people. Then again, maybe After Life (in addition to being a more macabre version of After Hours) is the only release any of us will ever get. That is, if the government would ever distribute any of those goddamn Quietus kits.
Another invisible transition into “Don’t Break My Heart” (an opposite directive to Dua Lipa’s “Break My Heart”) continues the religious motif with lyrics like, “You snatch my soul, I’m crucified” and “I think that you would die for me” (you know, like Jesus supposedly would and did). Its relaxed, ambient chill is all part of the “easy listening” that Jim Carrey promised us.
Even if some of the subject matters aren’t so “easy.” Like “I Heard You’re Married” featuring Lil Wayne. While some are prone to believe the song is a casual reference to The Weeknd’s frequent collaborator, Ariana Grande, maybe it has nothing at all to do with her… But when has The Weeknd ever resisted an opportunity to throw shade? He’s like Taylor Swift that way. Plus, the song title somehow has a very “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored” tinge. In any case, he’s not wrong when he says, “It hurts to think I’m sharin’ you.” No one, save for “polyamorists” like to share. And even that isn’t necessarily true for the people in the “relationship” who just “go along with it to placate the person who actually wants to do it. The Weeknd, however, doesn’t want to play that game at all (specifically announcing “I don’t play, I don’t play”). Thus, he accuses, “Ooh, I heard you’re married, girl/I knew that this was too good to be true/Ooh, I heard you’re married, girl, oh, oh, oh.”
This also would have been another ideal song to retroactively put into a movie, namely The Graduate. But like Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), The Weeknd would have probably run to the church to stop the wedding as well. Ergo, that bia would not be married. In fact, how has The Weeknd never incorporated this iconic scene into one of his videos? It just seems so him. Meanwhile, Lil Wayne chimes in, “Can’t be your side bitch/That shit ain’t fly, bitch.” Truth.
With all of The Weeknd’s love shown for the Decade of Excess, perhaps it was only a matter of time before he had a song called “Less Than Zero” (also the name of Bret Easton Ellis’ debut 1985 novel, if you didn’t know). Among the most whimsical and light-hearted sounding numbers, there is something decidedly Future Islands-y about it. And this time, in contrast to “I Heard You Were Married,” the cheating is on the other genitalia in that The Weeknd is the one who admits his “darkest truth of all” (so much for the “dawn”) to the one he loves. That’s right, Beyonce wouldn’t even need to ask: “Are you cheating on me?” That The Weeknd is, which is why he knows he’ll always be less than zero in his former lover’s eyes. A somewhat melancholy revelation to have against such a jubilant backing track.
Like Lady Macbeth, the guilt of his sin plagues him as he laments, “I can’t get it out of my head/No, I can’t shake this feeling that crawls in my bed/I try to hide it, but I know you know me/I try to fight it, but I’d rather be free.” So once again, we end with The Weeknd on the same spectrum he was for most of After Hours—choosing the side of “liberty,” therefore debauchery, instead of being “tied down” by love.
As a fellow Canadian, maybe it’s only right that The Weeknd should trust Carrey with the responsibility of closing out Dawn FM with a final profundity in the form of a poem/advisal called “Phantom Regret by Jim.” Among the highlights include, “Now that all future plans have been postponed/And it’s time to look back on the things you thought you owned/Do you remember them well?” This nod to the perspective the pandemic was supposed to give people about their priorities (materialistic or otherwise) speaks to Carrey’s own Buddhist-inspired spiritual approach to existence.
The disconnect that so often occurs between mind and body—and how that also creates a form of purgatory unto itself—is also underscored by Carrey when he says, “Was it often a dissonant chord you were strumming?/Were you ever in tune with the song life was humming?/If pain’s living on when your body’s long gone/And your phantom regret hasn’t let it go yet/You may not have died in the way that you must.”
The concept of being trapped in a state of purgatory is again acknowledged with, “Heaven’s for those who let go of regret/And you have to wait here when you’re not all there yet.” If that’s true, then we’ll all be waiting for quite some time in this in-between dubbed “life.” Which feels less and less so in that everyone around you seems to be a walking corpse, totally detached and utterly zombie’d out from their screen methadone.
As the first “blockbuster” album of 2022, Dawn FM might want to imply that its title ought to give hope. Instead, the content of the record indicates something far more ominous. But, if nothing else, the title suits how the album is the earliest to show up in 2022. A year everyone wants so badly to signal “the dawning of a new era,” when, in fact, like this album, it’s ultimately more of the same.
