The Voice Without a Body

The Weeknd named himself after the weekend he dropped out of high school and moved into his first apartment with a friend. What followed his 17th birthday there—the drug experiments, the particular freedom of a life suddenly untethered—he later described as like Kids, but without the AIDS. It’s the kind of origin story that sounds like mythology until you hear what came out of it.

He operated for years as pure signal: the music, the mixtapes, images, a logotype—but no body, no visible young man to whom this extraordinary voice seemed to belong. He’d started under the name Kin Kane, moved through a group called The Noise in 2008, and finally took the name The Weeknd in December 2010. Dropping the letter out of the word, like something already half-erased. The comparisons to Michael Jackson aren’t lazy. There’s the same quality of voice that seems to arrive from somewhere other than a human throat.

The short thing with Selena Gomez did something to him creatively—or at least gave him material. My Dear Melancholy, released earlier this year, is trim and dark and doesn’t overstay its welcome. Call Out My Name—the track that led it—is exactly what The Weeknd does: melodic, beat-heavy, slightly unmoored. A song that sounds expensive and feels cheap in the best possible way. Heartbreak music that knows it’s heartbreak music and makes the self-awareness part of the texture.