Music Hour: Listen To The Weekend Song Now

CONGRATS IF YOU HAD “Siouxsie and the Banshees fan from Canada remakes R&B in his own image” on your Pop Music in the 2010s bingo card! Abel Tesfaye emerged from Toronto in 2011 with a magnificent set of spacey, sepulchral EPs that marked the beginning of a monumental run. He was quickly lacing summer smashes, sharing tunes with Ariana and Lana, releasing huge albums like After Hours and this year’s outstanding Dawn FM, and even performing at the Super Bowl.

1. Often

Over a tear-jerking sample of “Ben Sana Vurgunum” by Turkish singer Nükhet Duru, the Weeknd brags about the sexual freedom he has as a “young god” in his birthplace of Toronto.

2.’Starboy,’ featuring Daft Punk

The Weeknd could have worked with anybody after the global success of Beauty Behind the Madness. He picked Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who provided an appealing electro sheen to his next chart-topping smash, French-filtering his vocals on the hook as he literally laughed his way to the money.

3. Call Out My Name

After the tremendous commercial success of “Earned It,” it’s no wonder that the Weeknd returned to the same well a few years later – “Call Out My Name” is another slow-drip ballad played in 6/8 time. Whereas “Earned It” had peppy strings and an upbeat message (“Girl, you’re perfect, you’re always worth it”), “Call Out My Name” is bleak and hollowed out, a dry narrative of reliance and sorrow laced with the Weeknd’s piercing, agonized wails.

4. The Hills

The archetypal Weeknd smash, with all of the pop instincts of his crossover blockbuster era and all of the sleaze and self-loathing of his avant-R&B early years. “The Hills” is a MIDI-enabled rendition of Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son that both enchants and chastises.

5. Wicked Games

The Weeknd’s debut song is a seductive, slow-groovin ‘meditation on growing up — feeling comfortable in your own skin and wrestling with the contrasts between love and passion, but “just for today.” Tesfaye delivers a movie-length drama in five and a half minutes: he’s just broken up with his girl, he took out all his money and spent it on drugs and his date, and he just wants to feel like a human being.