Major music news this week – The Weeknd has confirmed that his new album, dawn FM, is dropping Friday. On Monday he announced the title. Yesterday he shared the album cover. Today was the tracklist and the artists he’ll be collaborating with: Lil Wayne, Tyler, the Creator, Quincy Jones, and… Jim Carrey – Scarborough, Ontario represent!

 

So we know now what Abel’s costume will be for this album era. The new character is… a senior citizen. 

 

Seriously, the way his hair and makeup team transforms him for his music videos and his album covers, it’s sometimes better than big budget blockbuster movies. Have you seen his Halloween costumes? 

Anyway, dawn FM is the album follow-up to the smash hit album After Hours. So he’s sticking with a clock theme. “Blinding Lights”, the lead single off After Hours was released in November 2019 and it is now known as… 

 

After Hours, the full album, dropped March 20, 2020, pretty much when North America went into (its first) COVID lockdown. Millions of people, anxious and confused, had After Hours on repeat during those early few weeks and beyond, me included. That’s what so many of us held onto, right? Music, television, books, sourdough. All of it helped, and that’s just one of the reasons After Hours became the monster success that it was, still is. 

Now, nearly two years later, with this variant f-cking sh-t up again, and some of us back in lockdown as case counts are breaking records and health care systems are once again overwhelmed, The Weeknd is back with new music. He probably didn’t plan it that way, or intend it to be timed this way, but somehow this is the way it’s worked out.