The public intrigue in Weeknd’s dark music officially lasted a decade. Over the weekend, the once mysterious leader of the charts relaunched his debut mixtape of 2011 House of Balloons in celebration of its 10th anniversary. It arrived as a reminder of a particular moment in recent history. From the beginning, Weeknd was designed to experiment with gender and form. House of Balloons it was not intended to be an R&B project, as is commonly thought – probably because it came from a black man with a delicate voice. In reality, the mixtapeThe architects of ‘strongly appealed to dream pop and post-punk to lay the groundwork for Weeknd to become one of the most successful disruptors in popular music.
To shape your mysterious world, music in House of Balloons try names like Cocteau Twins, Aaliyah and Siouxsie and the Banshees. The mixtape also features two prominent samples of the moody indie rock band from Baltimore Beach House. “The Party & The After Party”, which speeds up their 2006 track “Master of None” as a backdrop, is the most satisfying derivative.
Stretching for almost eight minutes, the song offers a brilliant relief from the somber soundscape of the mixtape, looking like a hazy walk through a trippy circus. “Hold your drink, baby, don’t fall,” Weeknd asks, luring someone into his world. Putting hip-hop snaps and coercive lyrics about “Master of None” in its first half, “The Party & The After Party” soon falls apart into something less dependent on the sample, a jam-session confessional about crispy guitar and pounding drums . Weeknd riffs as if he were waking up from a drugged, crazy and needy romp. Its layers of sensual adlibs, an extension of its sex appeal, are smooth and expansive. It explodes “Master of None” in a new and comprehensive mix of rap, rock and pop.
Around this time House of Balloons arrived, other hip-hop and R&B artists brought rock and pop to their group. Just a month before Weeknd’s debut came Frank Ocean’s first mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra., where he remade songs by Coldplay, MGMT and Mr. Hudson. The previous year, Kanye West launched My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, featuring beloved Justin Vernon from Bon Iver. Even Michael Jackson called Billy Idol hard rock guitarist Steve Stevens for “Dirty Diana”, which decades later would serve as an inspiration for much of Weeknd’s work. While House of Balloons A novelty in its cohesion and commitment to the sinister, The Weeknd was not alone as a black artist employing “white” music to create something entirely his own. Its influence, however, is palpable.
For a while after House of Balloons, many artists – from Usher to Rihanna – found inspiration at Weeknd. “Just listen to the radio. Each song is House of Balloons 2.0, ”he boasted to Rolling Stone in 2015. He was able to attenuate a wide sample of music with his spectral impulses, in part due to the atmospheric sound of Beach House. Today, Weeknd uses his music in House of Balloons it looks like fandom and recovery work at the same time. Modern rock and pop exist because of black innovation, but they have been seen as white genres in the broad imagination. The key to pop’s ubiquity has often been the fusion of sounds and cultures, and historically it often involves what looks like white artists borrowing – or stealing – from blacks. On House of Balloons, like Michael Jackson and others before him, Weeknd doubled rock and pop at will and made us reimagine his image.