The Weeknd has just released a brand new project titled My Dear Melancholy, and fans, the world over, are loving it. For a few months now, the artist has been teasing us all on Instagram posting muted videos, which led most of us to believe that our phones’ sound wasn’t working, and photos during his time recording this project. What can we say? He must have a great marketing team that made audiences keep coming back until he announced the project.
The official title – My Dear Melancholy, – includes a comma which makes the record seem like a letter and brilliantly has us thinking “a letter to whom?”. The project – his first ever EP – harks back to Abel in his earlier days, from albums such as Echoes Of Silence, but also reveals what most of you have been waiting for, his feelings on his recent break-ups with celebrity girlfriends Selena Gomez and Bella Hadid.
“Call Out My Name” starts the album off with Abel wailing about his heartbreak, probably regarding his recent ex-girlfriend Selena Gomez who completely left him distraught after “using him as a pitstop”, to then go back to her ex Justin Bieber soon after.
He admits his real love for her and displays in the lyrics, he was willing to “almost cut a piece of myself for your life“, which is obviously about her kidney transplant. Yes, we are all still talking about this! Abel ends the verse with admitting he wasted his time.
A few brilliant songs later, he alludes to Selena again, with the lyrics, “She wasn’t even half of you, reminiscing how you felt”, in reference to Bella. He then goes through an eternal dialogue with himself on being friends with benefits with Bella in a song called “Wasted Times“, which refers to Bella’s equestrian ways and something sexual. You can probably guess the line if you’ve heard the song.
Besides his girl troubles, My Dear Melancholy, has us feeling like there’s a full length album in the pipeline to follow this, as he usually drops one around Autumn. It’s probably going to be just as deep and give us the old Abel back, that we’ve all been secretly craving. Cause let’s be honest, as well as his upbeat Starboy hits go, we all miss his “High For This” stage.
The chorus’ to most of the songs on this EP have extremely likeable lyrics even if they are somewhat dark. “I ain’t got no business catching feelings anyway”, is the best way Abel could allude to a feeling that most of us have felt at one point, and we love him for that.
The Weeknd knows how to target his fans through his heart-breaking lyrics and doesn’t hold back either. He hints at going back to his old ways and potentially repeating his ‘high’ phase, being less of a relationship type of guy, and more of his old self, who is just looking for more fun and less of the heartache.
It’s almost as Tesafaye is trying to figure out through these songs, where it all went wrong in his relationships, both with Bella and Selena and how he ever convinced himself to get into a relationship from his playboy bachelor lifestyle in the first place.
I think we can agree that whatever The Weeknd’s relationship status; previous, during or after, the outcome can promise us some good hits or albums like this being released. I’m sure we feel for the guy, he’s just human after all, but are you that sympathetic after hearing My Dear Melancholy, I get some of the lines have us relating but by the memes that have come out of this and the music are just brilliant.
Purchase The Weeknd’s Dear Melancholy, on iTunes here, and stream it below.
Words by Monica Mehmi
