The vibe on “Starboy” comes from that hip-hop culture of braggadocio, from Wu-Tang and 50 Cent, the kind of music I listened to as a kid. On this album, every song has a theme, is kind of its own cinematic piece. I like to look at it like a film - for every director, every film is different, with different actors, different emotions, different plots. I never wanted to tour, I just wanted to create music and make a diary I could put out into the world. When I was making the early stuff, I never expected it to be so big. I’m not going to sit here and just sing about making love, even though my favorite artists, that’s all they sing about. The vibe just represents how I feel, what relationship I’m going through, what friendships I’m going through, the success in my life, the failures in my life. It’s almost schizophrenic, who I portray in my music. “Starboy” might even present a fourth character. When you listen to Weeknd songs, you can hear three characters - the selfish guy (“Often”), a guy who is romantic but guarded (“Love Me Harder”) and an empathic guy (“In the Night”). That was the initial idea for “Rockin’,” which is one of the first ones I finished for the album. I even wanted to make an entire album where it was all very “Vogue”-inspired, music like Frankie Knuckles and Chicago house. I’ve played it for people, and they have no idea it’s me. I sang a lot of low stuff on songs like “Secrets” and “Rockin’,” almost like Toni Braxton. I tried to find different registers that I hadn’t sung in before. There was a lot of thought behind it, but I did it frantically, very fast, off the fumes of Beauty. I wanted to drop Starboy as soon as possible just to show that this is what I love doing: making music. Well, a lot of people think “The Hills” is pop now, but when it came out, the reaction was, “What is this?” People’s definition of pop just means whatever’s playing on the radio 24/7. Were you consciously going for something more pop? We started six months ago, and then we shut down the entire studio for four months. How long have you been working on the album? But you know they’re my label, they’re my partners, they ride for me. My deal with the label is pretty much a partnership, it’s like a distribution deal. The label would rather me never tour, and my touring agents rather that I do. My agents will be really happy to hear me say that. I never thought I’d love going onstage, but I do now.
#The weeknd story of my life song mod
Go back to my first show at the Mod Club in Toronto, and I was terrified.