Member Since: 6/6/2011
Posts: 48,509
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The Telegraph (UK) : 4/5 (80)
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The Weeknd's Starboy is glistening, interstellar R’n’B of the highest quality
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The 405 : 8/10 (80)
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While Starboy may not be a giant creative risk stretching away and beyond what we've come to expect from The Weeknd (like many of his A list peers such as Beyoncé, Rihanna and Kanye West have done with their albums earlier this year), it's a continuation of Abel's edgy salacious narrative and a complete assassination of pop's thematic normalcy. Kids singing along to coke ballads. We've awarded Abel for that luxurious and self-sabotaging story, enjoying our second-hand view. So The Weeknd has continued to put on a show.
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The A.V. Club : B- (75)
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Tesfaye’s ambition occasionally gets the best of him on Starboy. The record is a few songs too long, and it loses steam as it progresses. But such imperfections are par for the course: He’d rather express everything he’s feeling than put forth an airbrushed or idealized version of himself. In that sense, Starboy is one of the most confident releases of the year, one bold enough to reveal the cracks in The Weeknd’s façade for the sake of resonant art.
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Entertainment Weekly : B (75)
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Starboy’s standout tunes include the ones that directly examine his unlikely rise and its cultural implications. And while musicians writing about coping with newfound celebrity is one of pop’s oldest tropes, the Weeknd avoids the usual clichés with observations and anecdotes that feel specific and genuine. Whether he’s referencing his experience with homelessness on the Kendrick Lamar collab “Sidewalks” or puzzling over his mass appeal on “Reminder”—“I just won a new award for a kids’ show/ Talking ‘bout a face numbing off a bag of blow,” he sings, almost disgusted—Starboy proves that life at the top isn’t as interesting as how he got there.
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NY Times (70)
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Some of the most exciting songs on “Starboy” are the least expected. The panting “False Alarm” serves as the highest-profile instance of dance-punk’s revival, and features some of the Weeknd’s most unhinged singing. The album closer, “I Feel It Coming,” one of a few collaborations with Daft Punk, avoids the title track’s throbbing approach. This one is tender and dreamy, an optimistic rejoinder to an album full of cold shoulders and arched eyebrows. Midway, on the back-to-back songs “Rockin’” and “Secrets,” he sings in almost a courtly manner.
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Pretty Much Amazing : B- (67)
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As the Weeknd tries to find himself in that overlap while defending his spot atop the charts, he ends up losing much of the best quality of his music: the unflinching look at consequences of his lifestyle, the gradual physical and spiritual corrosion. Without that awareness, his debauchery is dull, especially when added such clean and colorful production engineered for Top 40. He seems like just another census taker Kanye has sent to tally bad bitches at Equinox. It’s a shame, because as Tesfaye notes on “Reminder”, The Weeknd has inspired a lot of imitators. Instead of moving forward on Starboy, he ends up sounding like one of them.
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Rolling Stone: 3/5 (60)
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The Weeknd has managed to offer some kind of ingenuity in spite of his well-worn shticks in the past. Kiss Land may have sounded like Trilogy redux, but at least it offered a thrilling reprise of Eighties underground darkwave as well as his mordantly inspired meditations on the first rush of international fame. Beauty Behind the Madness was a stunning leap forward into the pop stratosphere, and its standout moments more than outweighed its weaker tracks. However, Starboy, which follows a mixed critical reception to teaser tracks "Starboy" and "Party Monster," just sounds like clichés wrapped in prettier packaging. Yes, the Weeknd cut his dreads in favor of a fetching ink-blot mohawk; he's working with Daft Punk, who produced the title track and "I Feel It Coming"; and he's got a nickname that he has said pays homage to the late David Bowie. (He hasn't acknowledged claims that Nigerian afrobeats vocalist Wizkid used the name "Starboy" first.)
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The Guardian : 3/5 (60)
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The Weeknd: Starboy review – an artist in an awkward state of flux
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NOW Magazine 3/5 (60)
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At 18 tracks, Starboy delivers some pop gems, but its last third falters with a string of schmaltzy ballads eventually rescued by the Daft Punk-assisted closer, an enjoyable bit of retro lite-funk that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Random Access Memories.
Weirdly, Tesfaye barely appears on Starboy’s most interesting (and dirtiest) moment. Sung by a scene-stealing Del Rey, Stargirl Interlude has only one verse but it’s vivid in its simplicity, suggesting a wild scenario in only a few well-chosen lines (“Scratching counter tops, I was screaming”). It’s intimate, eerie and leaves you wanting more.
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DIYMAG : 2/5 (40)
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Tesfaye continues to sound as if he has no idea what it is that he wants to do.
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The Independent (UK) : no score
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That was a lot to take on board in one hit. I know there’s a couple of tracks I already want to wheel back after a breather, but I also know that I never want to hear ‘False Alarm’ ever again and that it should probably be jettisoned into space for the public’s safety.
I’ve accepted the fact that The Weeknd won’t be making more music like House of Balloons, and I really don’t blame him given he served up three mixtape’s worth, but this vulture-like clawing at different genres sometimes feels haphazard and like pastiche rather than trendsetting. Abel Tesfaye is undoubtedly a gifted vocalist and songwriter, but his thirst for MJ, sound-of-a-generation mainstream status is, I fear, leading him down the wrong paths.
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