Album Review: The Weeknd – Hurry Up Tomorrow

“Hurry Up Tomorrow” is the final album for The Weeknd, the stage monicker. It surely has all the scope and drama for a career finale. At 22 tracks a 1h 25min of runtime, the album is nothing short of an opus. It's a length that left me sceptical at first. To be transparent, I haven't ever been a fan of The Weeknd as a persona and his most recent albums, “After Hours” and “Dawn FM”, haven't even warranted their respective lengths in my opinion. “Hurry Up Tomorrow” is paired with these two albums to make up a trilogy and so, The Weeknd largely stays in the same lane here sonically, while taking the lengthiness of his albums to a new peak. That, logically, left me expecting a solid if too drawn out record – and worse, since the singles leading up to “Hurry Up Tomorrow” were merely respectable. I don't remember anything about “Dancing in the Flames”, which was left off of the album eventually, supposedly because of the L.A. fires. “Timeless” and “São Paulo” made it onto the final record, but I skipped the latter and found the former to be just decent, amidst discussions of the Playboi Carti feature being AI-generated. The stage was set for disaster, until I hit play on the fully released project…

You see, the album opens up on what is one of the best songs of the year already. “Wake Me Up” makes for a grandiose start. The song featuring none other than French Electro House duo Justice as well as songwriting and production from MIKE DEAN. As one might expect, this is a formula for success. “Wake Me Up” is an atmospheric, epically building Dance-Pop track, like only the best from “After Hours”, and has The Weeknd radiating the genius of Michael Jackson in his Thriller era. The ending of the song is jaw-dropping with it collapsing into the second track, “Cry for Me”, which brings back some of Abel's more whiny delivery, but does so as part of an insanely well-produced (done by Metro Boomin among others) and catchy Pop song. The dramatic energy flawlessly continues with the short interlude “I Can't Fucking Sing” calls back to a possibly career-changing incidence, where Abel lost his ability to sing on stage in L.A. in September 2022. The next song, again seemlessly transitioning in, is the single “São Paulo” and it works perfectly in this context as the long intro barely features any vocals from Abel and has this claustrophobic, dark feeling to it. “São Paulo” feels like a crude dance-party to someone having a breakdown – or someone having a breakdown just dancing through it in a grim way. The journey continues once again via an interlude (“Until We're Skin & Bones”) with “Bapitzed in Fear” that takes out the force and sees Abel step back and reflect on his desolate state of mind, until things pick up again with the next song, “Open Hearts”. The song features a pulsating Electro Funk beat, grand washes of synths and dramatic guitars. This instrumental is completely overtaken, when the chorus eventually grows into these somewhat glorious, almost piercing keyboard chord hits. “Open Hearts” is the second coming of “Wake Me Up”, another big highlight in The Weeknd's discography and on “Hurry Up Tomorrow”. The massive intrigue and dramatic hero's fall height pretty much carries on through the rest of the record. “Reflections Laughing” for example succeeds with its storytelling in a spoken-word middle-section, where Florence (of Florence + The Machine) fame plays a character who calls up Abel after he cut short his September 2022 L.A. show because of losing his singing ability. It feels like we as the listeners are witnessess of a very intimate conversation as Florence tells Abel: ‘I know you’re up / You think I don't know you're staying up all night / Cooped up in that hotel room?' Sadly, the song, which is probably the slowest and most reflective moment on the album, is a little dragged down by a boring Travis Scott verse. The next track, “Enjoy the Show”, is also concerned with the aftermath of the canceled show and has The Weeknd performing over a beautiful Chipmunk Soul beat and eventually giving up the mic to Future, whose feature, while not entirely excellent, is a lot better than Travis Scott's. The two tracks combined, “Reflections Laughing” and “Enjoy the Show”, make for a pretty long section of contemplative material, but I think they are working well enough as a whole, profiting from the phenomenal work The Weeknd did in the opening section of the album, and they come to a dramatic conclusion, when Abel struggles with suicidal thoughts on his final verse on “Enjoy the Show”. However, when the album continues on a similar, if a little more upbeat and multi-phased note in “Given Up On Me”, the album hits what is probably its lowpoint in consistency. It's still an interesting and emotionally potent song though, with its Soul break in the middle and the piano-driven Vocal Jazz-esque intro. 

This is where we move into the second half of “Hurry Up Tomorrow” starting with “I Can't Wait To Get There”, where the mood of the album begins to slightly shift into more optimistic territory. The instrumental featuring prominent backing vocals is reminisicent of ‘90s era Janet Jackson. It’s not quite a highlight on the album, but definitely a noteworthy song. Next up is the most controversial track on the album, “Timeless”, and I gotta be honest, I don't have a strong opinion on this one or the usage of AI. I find it sad for Playboi Carti as an artist that he either is too lazy to record an entirely original verse or unable to match the delivery of an AI-generated version of himself. Whatever it is, the verse is good enough in my opinion and the rest of the track is kind of fire. I especially love the beat with its arpeggiated, spacey synths. It sounds really colorful and satisfying to my ears and Abel's vocal performance on the track is great too. 
“Timeless” starts another more dark section of “Hurry Up Tomorrow”. “Niagara Falls” is an even better track with a badass vocal sample, lush production and a captivating performance from Abel once again. The conclusion to it is incredibly satisfying to with a key change and a rise in pitch to transition it into another highlight, the nostalgic “Take Me Back To LA”. “Big Sleep” marks another transitional moment. It starts very ambient and builds to a somewhat subdued grandness, ringing in the final leg of “Hurry Up Tomorrow”. “Give Me Mercy” opens up with these quirky ‘70s synthesizers as if we were restarting. The song’s beautiful sound matches the theme of mercy and forgiveness, and Abel presents one of the album's best vocal melodies. “Give Me Mercy” feels like somewhat of an emotional highpoint for the album, although it could be argued to be a little generic. 
“Hurry Up Tomorrow” stays stadium-ready and dreamy on “Drive” and then goes into the dramatic piano of “The Abyss” featuring none other than Lana Del Rey, whose vocal contributions maybe come in a little too late, but are still a huge plus-point for the song that moves from a Trap beat drop into an ambient drone, where Lana Del Rey finally gets to shine. 
With that, we are about to enter the finale of “Hurry Up Tomorrow” and I think the review up to this point has illustrated fairly well how long and winding the journey so far already has been. Not every moment has been a highlight, but, except for that Travis Scott verse, pretty much all of the way is great. Still, it has to be said that, despite The Weeknd filling a runtime this long with almost no dull nor tedious moments, “Hurry Up Tomorrow” could use one or two windings less to really feel coherent. It's not that the album isn't coherent really, but it is so long that it becomes difficult to grasp what every single detour really adds. On the other hand, this reinforces just how big The Weeknd and his vision are in the music world. The album's grandiosity feels appropriate and it is a rewarding listen front to back – especially with all its incredibly seemless transitions – that only a Pop star with this kind of budget and scope could make. “Hurry Up Tomorrow” might be the strongest record in The Weeknd's discography, though you should take my two cents with a grain of salt as I'm not generally a fan of the artist. Anyway, the last three tracks are all great and the title-track closing the album is a phenomenal final statement – not as good as “Wake Me Up” as an opener, but close enough. So, yeah, “Hurry Up Tomorrow” pretty much has me convinced that Abel really is a great artist and that he can in fact make an album that is simultaneously packed with hits, consistent, honest and authentic, and, well, not weird (side-eye on all his overly horny stuff where he comes off like a predator). Check out the track ratings below.

Track listing and Song ratings

1. Wake Me Up | 100 ★
2. Cry For Me | 80
3. I Can't Fucking Sing | NR
4. São Paolo | 80
5. Until We're Skin & Bones | NR
6. Baptized In Fear | 80
7. Open Hearts | 90 ★
8. Opening Night | NR
9. Reflections Laughing | 70
10. Enjoy the Show | 80
11. Given Up On Me | 70
12. I Can't Wait To Get There | 80
13. Timeless | 80
14. Niagara Falls | 90 ★
15. Take Me Back To LA | 90 ★
16. Big Sleep | 80
17. Give Me Mercy | 80
18. Drive | 80
19. The Abyss | 90
20. Red Terror | 80
21. Without a Warning | 80
22. Hurry Up Tomorrow | 90 ★