The Weeknd - Hurry Up Tomorrow
The Weeknd presents the final album by The Weeknd.
Over the past decade, we’ve come to recognize The Weeknd’s music instantly, even without seeing his name attached. He has delivered countless unforgettable hits and compelling artistic eras. Now, for the second time in his career, he employs the concept of a trilogy. Hurry Up Tomorrow serves as the concluding chapter of his second trilogy and, according to the artist himself, marks the final album released under The Weeknd moniker before he transitions to making music under his real name—Abel Tesfaye.
What Hurry Up Tomorrow ultimately offers is an extensive epilogue—one that attempts to summarize his career while also stretching the audience’s attention for one last round, pressing the same buttons that worked before.
Let’s address the obvious right away: this album has no right to be this long (1 hour and 24 minutes). At a certain point, it starts dissolving into itself, losing focus and sonic coherence, turning into a monotonous cacophony of sounds and words. The issue isn’t necessarily the quality of the individual songs—on the contrary, most of them are fairly decent when considered separately. But stringing together a collection of good songs doesn’t automatically result in a great album. And that’s exactly where this record shoots itself in the foot.
It feels as if The Weeknd took a signature The Weeknd song, multiplied it by three, and compiled it into an album—that’s essentially how Hurry Up Tomorrow came to be. On the bright side, his vocal delivery remains top-tier, unmistakably smooth and distinctive. However, the lyrics fall into repetition, feeling self-referential and surface-level to the point where it sometimes sounds like he’s covering himself. Instrumentally, nothing truly stands out. While different sonic palettes appear throughout the record, they either aren’t explored to their full potential or are deliberately restrained in favor of maintaining a singular concept—one that would have been clear regardless.
In the end, Hurry Up Tomorrow comes across as The Weeknd basking in his own glory—a self-indulgent attempt to reaffirm his greatness, or perhaps to convince himself of it. To do so, he has delivered an overlong, at times undercooked, yet unmistakably The Weeknd album—one that is, by definition, pleasant enough to justify a listen.
What this album definitively declares is that The Weeknd has nothing left to say. One can only hope the same doesn’t apply to Abel Tesfaye.
6.8/10
