Abel Tesfaye — aka mollied out sexpot The Weeknd — has taken great care in constructing his rise to grooving dominance, consistently making choices that bring him closer to television screens, rather than just hipsters’ computers. Yet, simultaneously, these choices haven’t always been the best for his actual aesthetic.
Letting Drake co-opt his sound and, essentially, pass it off as his own, was devilishly strategic in terms of boosting his profile, but it didn’t exactly do him any favors in asserting himself as an independent voice with ideas all his own, something the crooner has had to address through denying invitations to join the Young Money roster. Similar things can be said for his choices in collaborations — Wiz Khalifa helplessly drowned in the cascade of Abel’s performance on “Remember You,” and the more recent “appearance” on Ricky Hil’s “Nomads” is turned to an abomination by Hil’s brief, pathetic verse.
Then The Weeknd met Juicy J. Dipping into the same powder, Abel’s vacuous emotions have never had a more natural partner than the Three 6 Mafia ring leader’s constant celebration of debauchery. Together, the two blast off in their flying saucer without any of the hesitance other artists visiting The Weeknd’s world have displayed. It goes without saying that Juicy isn’t prepared to match the wistful complexity of Abel’s dialogue — it doesn’t matter. For every sinister “she can’t feel her knees” Tesfaye can spin, Juicy is prepared to brazenly retort with the likes of “I’ll put yo ho on a body auction.”
On paper, J’s inherent absurdity may even have seemed too much for Tesfaye’s soundscape. Somehow, after all, The Weeknd’s music retains a certain class through all the fucking, misery, and molly, whereas, Juicy’s music can only described as the complete and total absence of. Herein lies the perfection of “One of Those Nights,” Juicy’s ridiculousness buoying Abel’s music into exactly what is at heart, and The Weeknd respectively somehow grounding J in the reality that the two lost, drugged out souls occupy.
