The Weeknd- "Love In The Sky"
The Weeknd- "Love In The Sky"
The Weeknd drops another eerie r&b bomb on us out of the blue, appropriately titled "Love In The Sky." The newest release from his forthcoming LP Kiss Land finds Abel in "Dirty Diana" mode vocals-wise, with appropriately raunchy guitars that sound like The XX is playing in the next studio over and what sounds like Phil Collins and the Miami Vice Orchestra on the drum programming (I'm hoping those are just reference points and I'm not find out later that there is an actual sample that Phil Collins or Jan Hammer is gonna blow Abel up on twitter about, ala Portishead on "Belong To The World"). I take the title to mean that this song is intended to do for sex on an airplane (or maybe zeppelin?) what Prince's "Little Red Corvette" did for sex in a sports car--but somehow all the epic soundscaping going on adds up to a total effect that's a little...I don't know, snoozy? To be fair that feeling is probably about 75% unrealistically high expectations. Young dude established such a strong, unique voice so quickly that it seems I want to hear more artistic evolution from him than I do--even though this is in some ways this is his first real album. In some ways, but in terms of audience expectations it is his fourth outing and let's be real, skies is watching. At least thats the way I felt on the first listen through, until I realized the weirdest thing about this song is that it's put together backwards; a reverse build-up/climax that starts with big chords and big drums and then at 3 minutes in lets the synth washes wash entirely away to real a more focused groove that is much quieter, much freakier and much more interesting, for the final minute and 24 seconds. Isn't this where we should have started?
