The Weeknd’s sixth studio album, Hurry Up Tomorrow, is nothing short of a triumph. Topping charts worldwide and earning critical acclaim, it cements his place as a musical force. From the electro-orchestral swell of the opening track, “Wake Me Up,” to the haunting synth dirge of the closing title song, the 22-track opus unfolds as a deeply personal journey.
Born from a period of struggle, the album is more than just a musical milestone—it’s a farewell. With Hurry Up Tomorrow, Abel Tesfaye bids an emotional goodbye to the enigmatic Weeknd persona he has so carefully crafted over the years.
Hurry Up Tomorrow marks Tesfaye’s fifth consecutive studio album to dominate the charts, extending a streak of success that began with Beauty Behind the Madness (2015), Starboy (2016), After Hours (2020), and Dawn FM (2022). These masterful albums have woven a narrative of love, fame, and self-discovery—each chapter propelling him further into global superstardom.
His résumé reads like a pop icon’s dream. With four Grammys, a historic Super Bowl halftime performance, a record-breaking stadium tour, and an astonishing 25 songs surpassing a billion streams on Spotify, Tesfaye isn’t just making music—he’s shaping an era.
The Man Behind the Mask: Abel Tesfaye
When Tesfaye first emerged, his air of mystery was part of the allure. As Pitchfork once noted, “If you haven’t heard much about The Weeknd, it’s because there isn’t much info out there on them—that is, if the mysterious project… is a ‘them’ and not just a ‘him’ or ‘her.’”
But now? The Weeknd has shed his indie anonymity to become one of the world’s biggest pop stars. His collaborations with industry titans—Beyoncé, Kanye “Ye” West, Kendrick Lamar, Daft Punk, Lana Del Rey, and Travis Scott—have only cemented his place in music history. His impact on pop culture is undeniable. With each album, each hit, and each reinvention, Tesfaye’s rise to superstardom has felt nothing short of inevitable.
With his signature blend of hedonism and heartbreak, Tesfaye earned the title “King of Sex Pop” from GQ Magazine. His music—sultry, dark, and laced with nightmarish odes to excess—blurred the line between the artist and his persona. For years, it was hard to distinguish Abel Tesfaye from The Weeknd.
“The lines were blurry at the beginning,” he admitted in a 2021 GQ interview. “As my career developed—as I developed as a man—it’s become very clear that Abel is someone I go home to every night. And The Weeknd is someone I go to work as.”
Making Pop Cool Again
House of Balloons may have been The Weeknd’s underground breakthrough, but Beauty Behind the Madness cemented his place in pop’s upper echelon. “‘Earned It’ made people believe that I was my own hit maker, and we’re seeing that again now with ‘The Hills,’” Tesfaye told Time Magazine in 2015. “It made me feel confident in myself before I started connecting with the monster hit makers.”
From that moment on, his artistic evolution has been relentless. “Starboy” saw him refine his sound, embracing a sleeker, more commercial edge. After Hours pulled him back into the abyss, exploring themes of regret, loss, and self-destruction. Then came Dawn FM, a conceptual purgatory that blurred the lines between life, death, and the afterlife. Each project has been more than just an album—it’s been a chapter in his ongoing saga, a sonic deep dive into the mind of Abel Tesfaye.
The Beginning of the End?
The Weeknd’s Hurry Up Tomorrow now serves as the final chapter in a trilogy that began with 2020’s After Hours and continued with Dawn FM. These interconnected albums follow a semi-autobiographical protagonist navigating a dark night of the soul—a journey that, in Tesfaye’s words, explores “a kind of purgatory and getting to the darkest part until you find the light at the end of the tunnel.”
To bring this vision to life, Tesfaye embarked on the grueling After Hours Til Dawn stadium tour, a massive undertaking across North America. But on September 3, 2022, what was meant to be the tour’s triumphant finale at SoFi Stadium turned into an artist’s nightmare—The Weeknd lost his voice mid-performance. “My body, and specifically my voice, had never failed me before,” he later told Variety. “I was defeated on the world stage… with everyone watching.”
For one of the first times in his career, Tesfaye was forced to confront an existential crisis—live, in front of thousands. But instead of retreating, he chose resilience. He rescheduled the show, returning weeks later to deliver not one but two make-up performances at SoFi. “I knew that I really needed to sit the fuck down and figure out my life,” he admitted. “To understand what happened, face it, learn something new, and start again. I’d had a kind of a mental breakdown, which is pretty much what this new album’s about.”
A New Chapter
For his next act, The Weeknd is stepping into the world of cinema with Hurry Up Tomorrow, a film inspired by his latest album of the same name. Set for a theatrical release on May 16, the feature stars Jenna Ortega as Anima and Barry Keoghan as Lee.
With Tesfaye co-writing and producing, the project promises to be more than just a visual extension of the album—it’s an expansion of his creative universe. Given his previous forays into film and television, including The Idol, this latest endeavor signals his deepening commitment to storytelling beyond music.
Watch The Weeknd’s Hurry Up Tomorrow film trailer
Featured image: @theweeknd/Instagram
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