The Weeknd’s sixth, and final, studio album Hurry Up Tomorrow has caused fans lots of excitement and heartbreak. This album dives deep into The Weeknd’s past of drug use and cheating and has showcased his growth and determination for change.
This album is the final album of a trilogy of albums that conveys the death of The Weeknd: After Hours, Dawn FM, and Hurry Up Tomorrow. The Weeknd is no more, he has nothing else to offer us. Abel Tesfaye, the creator of “The Character,” has already explored all his musical challenges as The Weeknd and wants to put his troubling past behind him. Hurry Up Tomorrow is The Weeknd’s most personal work yet, and it closes the door of The Weeknd, but is now opening the door for Abel to showcase who he truly is.
Throughout listening to Hurry Up Tomorrow many parallels can be drawn between this album and his previous ones. Many of the track titles contrast other songs from other albums. There’s “Take Me Back to LA” and “Escape From LA” from After Hours, “Cry For Me” and “Save Your Tears” also from After Hours, “I Can’t Wait to Get There” and “I Was Never There” from My Sweet Melancholy, “Timeless” and “Out of Time” from Dawn FM, and many more that can be seen throughout the album. The songs from previous albums all showcase some form of toxicity from him, and this album shows his want for forgiveness and growth and the contrasting titles highlight this.
Hurry Up Tomorrow is largely inspired by an incident that took place at one of his LA shows during the first leg of his “After Hours til Dawn” Tour in September of 2022. Abel was singing and in the middle of a note he tweaked his voice. He then went off stage to try to do vocal exercises to get his voice back, but this was unsuccessful. He then went on stage and told his fans that he couldn’t continue performing and was met with boos and anger. This event has stuck with him since. He had already half of this album written when this occurred, but after that night he scrapped it and rewrote the entire album.
He references that event multiple times throughout the album. “I Can’t F****** Sing” is an interlude that was added to the album where we can hear a recording of Abel after he got off the stage talking about how he can’t sing, clearly in distress. Another song that references this is “Without a Warning” with the lyrics saying “And my voice fails, And my tears fall without a warnin’ either way.” Although the event was horrible for Abel to experience, it inspired him to write this album and be vulnerable and to show his true self, and not behind the mask of “The Character” of The Weeknd.
This album is unlike any other album written by The Weeknd. There is a combination of many different genres, as compared to his past albums that featured mostly dark R&B and pop. Hurry Up Tomorrow solidifies The Weeknd’s ability to be one of the most versatile artists of this generation with a combination of many different genres. This album features synth-pop with “The Abyss” featuring Lana Del Rey, hip hop and trap with features like Travis Scott, Playboi Carti, and Future, and Brazilian funk which can be seen in “Sao Paulo” featuring Anitta. In Hurry Up Tomorrow, The Weeknd pushes his artistic boundaries further by integrating a broader range of genres and collaborating with diverse artists.
Although Hurry Up Tomorrow marks the end of The Weeknd’s chapter, this is not the end of amazing music. The Weeknd has made one of the biggest impacts on music in the 21st century so far and remains one of the top artists in the world. Abel will continue to put out music but will be abandoning his pop-star persona. Whether this album serves as a farewell to his XO era or the dawn of something new, it showcases his artistry and ability to keep fans guessing. Whether this means a complete departure from his past or simply a new chapter, one thing is certain: Hurry Up Tomorrow is more than an album, it’s a farewell to The Weeknd and a glimpse into the artist Abel is becoming.