The Weeknd - My Dear Melancholy 2018 AAC

The Weeknd - My Dear Melancholy (Album 2018)
Format                         : MPEG-4
Format profile                 : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID                       : mp42
File size                      : 40.7 MiB
Duration                       : 21mn 52s
Overall bit rate mode          : Variable
Overall bit rate               : 260 Kbps
Album/Performer                : The Weeknd
Performer                      : The Weeknd
Publisher                      : The Weeknd
Recorded date                  : 2018
Cover                          : Yes


ENCODERSETTINGS                : Lavf56.30.100

Format                         : AAC
Format/Info                    : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                 : HE-AAC / LC
Codec ID                       : 40
Bit rate                       : 254 Kbps
Maximum bit rate               : 343 Kbps
Channel(s)                     : 2 channels
Channel positions              : Front: L R
Sampling rate                  : 88.2 KHz / 44.1 KHz
Compression mode               : Lossy


1. The Weeknd  -  Call Out My Name - 03:49

2. The Weeknd  -  Try Me - 03:41

3. The Weeknd  -  Wasted Times - 03:40

4. The Weeknd/Gesaffelstein  -  I Was Never There - 04:01

5. The Weeknd/Gesaffelstein  -  Hurt You - 03:50

6. The Weeknd  -  Privilege - 02:51

Unlike his early work, “Melancholy” is more of a Weeknd take on crying-in-your-beer ballads than existential brooding. And with lyrics like “I don’t want to wake up if you’re not laying next to me”; “I’mma drink the pain away, I’ll be back to my old ways”; “We said our last goodbyes, so let’s just try to end it with a smile,” approximately 23 minutes after “Melancholy” dropped, the Internet was alight with wonderers wondering whether these songs are post-Selena/Bella breakup ballads.

We’ll leave that to them, but musically the album features several previous collaborators (Cirkut, Daheala, Mike Will Made It, Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo) as well as co-executive producer and fellow Canadian Frank Dukes (Frank Ocean, Camila Cabello, one track on “Starboy”), Skrillex, French producer Gesaffelstein and Chilean broodmaster Nicolas Jaar. All help bring in the darkness, although their contributions aren’t instantly recognizable and meld into The Weeknd’s overall vibe. (There’s also a hook that sounds like the crazy theme from Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” — that wailing screech when the picture blanches and Uma Thurman has a dark flashback — grafted into “I Was Never There.”)

So as best can be told in a morning-after hot take, “My Dear Melancholy,” feels more like a transition, a way station on the journey to wherever The Weeknd is going next — and it’s a credit to this prolific and ever-evolving artist that he manages to be creatively restless and never stay in the same place for long while always sounding unmistakably like himself.

Call Out My Name (prod. Frank Dukes)
Try Me (prod. Mike WiLL Made-It, Marz, Frank Dukes & Daheala)
Wasted Times (prod. (Frank Dukes; co-produced by Skrillex)
I Was Never There (prod. Gesaffelstein & Frank Dukes)
Hurt You (prod. Gesaffelstein, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo; co-produced by Cirkut)
Privilege (prod. Frank Dukes & Daheala)