Any thoughts on this?
Personally I think this is one of the coolest thing I've ever seen done with music videos.
I also love synthpop and synthwave, and 1980s style production, so I'm a big fan of the album, After Hours, overall. Not only that, but Max Martin Produces several songs on the album (the third collaboration with The Weeknd). If you're a fan of the Eurythmics, Cocteau Twins, Prince, or Depeche Mode, this album is right up your alley.
The first single from the album is Heartless which features The Weeknd gambling, sipping Scotch, making out with statues among other things. Like the videos to follow, it's a mix of psychedelic experiences that blur reality with the imagination.
Early in the year, he dropped the second single, and gigantic smash hit, Blinding Lights, which has become the biggest song of 2020 so far, worldwide - topping charts around the world including 8 weeks at number 1 in the UK, the German charts for 10, and Australian for 11; perhaps a larger mark of success is the 22 weeks its spent in the top 10, which makes it the UK's 10th most successful single in history. The song itself marks the return of Swedish Producer Max Martin for another collaboration with The Weeknd, who Rolling Stone magazine attributes the song's Depeche Mode synth to.
For my money, Blinding Lights features one of the best music videos of the past 20 years. The theme is simple, it continues where Heartless leaves off, and shows him dancing smoothly and driving at high speeds around Las Vegas alone at night with the occasional stop at a club where he's the only patron - there's something sublime about that imagery. The video theme was, perhaps, conjured up by the lyrics "I'm running out of time; Cause I can see the sun light up the sky; So I hit the road in overdrive, baby; the city's cold and empty; No one's around to judge me." which is also telling for the themes of the video series as a whole.... Later on, the Blinding Lights video shows something closer to reality with a far busier and more active city, and his dancing is far less smooth with little energy... My initial assumption was that the whole song and video was a metaphor for cocaine usage.
The next video in the series is the same song, performed live on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. In the context of the story, it seems to take This one is important, as it links up to the rest of the series.
In Your Eyes sounds like a 1980s radio staple, but it's 2020. And speaking of the 80s, the video features a 1980's style slasher theme with The Weeknd playing the part of the killer. Again, the video features a mix of reality and imagination.
Then it all connects up with this short film (epilepsy warning) which shows the Weekend walking back from the Jimmy Kimmel set, clearly very disturbed about something. It ends at the beginning of In Your Eyes.
Personally I think this is one of the coolest thing I've ever seen done with music videos.
I also love synthpop and synthwave, and 1980s style production, so I'm a big fan of the album, After Hours, overall. Not only that, but Max Martin Produces several songs on the album (the third collaboration with The Weeknd). If you're a fan of the Eurythmics, Cocteau Twins, Prince, or Depeche Mode, this album is right up your alley.
The first single from the album is Heartless which features The Weeknd gambling, sipping Scotch, making out with statues among other things. Like the videos to follow, it's a mix of psychedelic experiences that blur reality with the imagination.
Early in the year, he dropped the second single, and gigantic smash hit, Blinding Lights, which has become the biggest song of 2020 so far, worldwide - topping charts around the world including 8 weeks at number 1 in the UK, the German charts for 10, and Australian for 11; perhaps a larger mark of success is the 22 weeks its spent in the top 10, which makes it the UK's 10th most successful single in history. The song itself marks the return of Swedish Producer Max Martin for another collaboration with The Weeknd, who Rolling Stone magazine attributes the song's Depeche Mode synth to.
For my money, Blinding Lights features one of the best music videos of the past 20 years. The theme is simple, it continues where Heartless leaves off, and shows him dancing smoothly and driving at high speeds around Las Vegas alone at night with the occasional stop at a club where he's the only patron - there's something sublime about that imagery. The video theme was, perhaps, conjured up by the lyrics "I'm running out of time; Cause I can see the sun light up the sky; So I hit the road in overdrive, baby; the city's cold and empty; No one's around to judge me." which is also telling for the themes of the video series as a whole.... Later on, the Blinding Lights video shows something closer to reality with a far busier and more active city, and his dancing is far less smooth with little energy... My initial assumption was that the whole song and video was a metaphor for cocaine usage.
The next video in the series is the same song, performed live on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. In the context of the story, it seems to take This one is important, as it links up to the rest of the series.
In Your Eyes sounds like a 1980s radio staple, but it's 2020. And speaking of the 80s, the video features a 1980's style slasher theme with The Weeknd playing the part of the killer. Again, the video features a mix of reality and imagination.
Then it all connects up with this short film (epilepsy warning) which shows the Weekend walking back from the Jimmy Kimmel set, clearly very disturbed about something. It ends at the beginning of In Your Eyes.
