Album Review: After Hours | The Weeknd
- lifeisbella
- Apr 13, 2020
- 3 min read
This is Album #19/20 that I listened to for my 2020 challenge. I listened to this album 8 times for my review.
Here are some quick stats about After Hours by The Weeknd:
This was one of my most hyped albums of the year. I haven't listened to any of The Weeknd's albums in full before, but I've enjoyed a lot of singles that he's released previously as well as the singles that were released for After Hours, so I was really looking forward to giving this album a try. And to be honest, I was a little disappointed with it. "Blinding Lights" really hyped me up, and the rest of the album didn't have as many bops on it that I would have hoped.
I don't think I really need to do a track list breakdown for this one. There weren't any songs that I particularly disliked, but most of the songs were pretty meh for me. My favorites were "Blinding Lights," "Hardest to Love," and "In Your Eyes." I don't think it's a coincidence that those three songs are by far the most unique standouts on the album. I'm a big fan of the 1980s throwback that is especially prevalent in "Blinding Lights." I think I was expecting the whole album to have a bit more of that influence in there. Some songs did, but most songs were pretty normal and modern sounding. Most of the songs other than my three favorites, sounded pretty indistinguishable to me. But I do appreciate that there was at least a little bit of variety, and the my three favorites are definitely very unique sounding.
Abel is listed as a writer on all the songs. However, he is listed as a writer along with usually about 3-4 additional writers. So I'm not sure how much input he actually had on the songwriting process. Another thing I wanted to quickly point out is that I'm not a big fan of the heavy voice effects/autotune used here. It's not so harsh or prevalent that it really bothers me though, I would just prefer for it to be more natural sounding.
Listen or don't listen? Listen. I think that everyone will enjoy the album. It has enough variety that I think there's something there for everyone.
Buy or don't buy? Don't buy. While I do I think that this album definitely brings something unique to the table, I don't think it jumps fully into it as I would like it to. It definitely is not the average album that is typically released these days, and I appreciate the creativity utilized here, I just don't think that the full album is strong enough to recommend buying the whole thing. That's just in my opinion.
Personally, I would probably give this album a 6/10. Critically, I would probably give it a higher score, it's just that personally I didn't connect to it as much as I was hoping to. But I definitely think everyone should give this album a try. I would still consider going back and listening to his previous albums. I will probably look out for his future work as well. Have you listened to this album? Let me know your thoughts down below.
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