THE WEEKND - AFTER HOURS: GROWTH AND REBIRTH OF AN ARTIST
When you look at this photo, what exactly do you see.
Speaking for fans of The Weeknd, long time, short time, or just strangers who stumbled upon his music for his most recent singles as the newest album creeps around the corner.
It’s a man covered in some blood. A bit on his nose, his cheeks, his chin, all over his teeth. He’s looking down onto you. He’s grinning, but not without some sort of underlying emotion that sits beside that grin. That weight. That thirst. Almost bitter, grabby, slow and steady. One would say he embodies a murderer about to get his kill. In a physical sense.
One could also say this sort of “murderer” could serve almost as a metaphor, where the grin lies, if you strip away just labeling what it looks like as an aesthetic.
Look at the photo without context, without the jump to comparison. Look at the person. If any context, if you know who The Weeknd is, just look at The Weeknd. What do you feel. It almost feels eerie. Just a little bit of this sublime spitefulness. That feeling that’s almost parallel to that “murderer complex,” there’s a heaviness and resignment behind those eyes, but the grin says otherwise. The exhaust of someone pulling through the mud of SOMETHING, anything, everything, and coming out on the other end; the exhaust of partying all night long, having fun, and he’s just bleeding, it doesn’t even matter. He is where he is. Wherever he came to, went through, and came out of, he is where he is.
And perhaps he isn’t the same person as he was before. Whatever happened, whatever he’s become, he has no choice but to wear it. Like the blood-splattered grin on his face.
theartofmadeline
