442. The Weeknd, "Beauty Behind the Madness"

 

Who knew that a whole album about doing blow and having sex could be so fucking DARK? Those are both typical rock star activities, and by the time this came out Abel Tesfaye was already a star, but unlike his predecessors like Jerry Lee Lewis or David Lee Roth or anyone else with three names, the rewards of stardom aren't making him happy, they're making him very sad.

So there's songs like "In the Night" which is an unquestionable electro-pop jam and you're bopping your head up and down until you start listening to the lyrics and then you're like "wait....what?" because it's becoming clear this is a song about a sexual abuse survivor who becomes a stripper.

In the night she hears him calling
In the night she's dancin' to relieve the pain
She'll never walk away
I don't think you understand
In the night when she comes crawlin'
Dollar bills and tears keep fallin' down her face
She'll never walk away
I don't think you understand

Not exactly "Hot for Teacher."  I mean, there is definitely a need to destigmatize sexual abuse and bring it out into the open and be frank about it but sometimes you just wanna dance, y'know?  And it kinda makes you question the message when the rest of the songs on the album are like "Baby, I can make that pussy rain, often" ("Often").

There's also a truly terrible collab with Ed Sheeran called "Dark Times," spinning out a bleak yarn about either savagely beating or killing another man whose narrative force is somewhat diminished by the fact that it's a duet with, you know, Ed Sheeran.

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