Written by Ronak Maiti
Around a year ago, The Beaver published an article by Angelika Santaniello on how The Weeknd’s music contributes to ‘society’s disengagement with, and detachment from, sensitive topics’, as one of the most successful musicians globally despite the morally problematic elements of his output.
It’s a well-evidenced, thought-provoking piece which I recommend reading.
This article, however, seeks to defend The Weeknd (or ‘Abel’, from ‘Abel Tesfaye’) as an artist and, more importantly, the millions of people who love his music in spite of, or indeed because of, its perversity.
First, I note that I appreciate most of Santianello’s reasoning.
Bertolt Brecht, a playwright, claimed ‘Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it’; Santaniello is right to be concerned about problematic elements in art informing and supporting an unethical culture. Across art forms, from music to film to architecture to poetry, exclusion and debasement of oppressed peoples has led to ‘distorted mirrors’ of reality which incorporate ‘monstrous cliches’ instead of honest ‘cultural reflection’, as Zadie Smith, a novelist, phrased it.
The analysis of The Weeknd’s lyrics in Santianello’s argument, which covers his discography, are fair: the lyrics do discuss misogyny, manipulation, violence, and abuse in unsavoury ways. Allegations of creepy behaviour outside of his songwriting, like in his poorly-received TV show The Idol, seem to condemn Abel even further.
In a world where art is commodified and cannot be enjoyed apolitically nor without consequence, we must remember that our consumption of music doesn’t occur in a vacuum, and can empower problematic individuals and cultures.
However, we can interpret the popularity of Abel’s music through a different lens which is more forgiving to the millions that adore his music: a view that reconciles his lyrics with how they generate authentic enjoyment in the demographics they affect — namely, women – and beyond.
According to StarNGage, 51.8% of The Weeknd’s Instagram followers are women. As one of the biggest artists globally, this constitutes to an estimated woman fanbase roughly equal to the population of England. Is it really the case that so many women, presumably affected by misogyny and objectification, are desensitised and disengaged from these themes in their enjoyment of Abel’s music?
Is it possible that their enjoyment could even be fuelled by these elements? An answer to this question may lie in understanding perversion and transgression as a virtue of art, when done well.
Perversion, at its core, is an unmotivated, irrational impulse that can lead to self-destruction. Abel’s lyrics about self-destructive drug use, and destruction of conventional norms of respect and decency, subscribe to this definition.
That definition was paraphrased from Edgar Allen Poe’s short-story The Imp of Perverse, where he explores how this Dionysian psychological force can serve as an inspiration and catalyst for art. Indeed, Poe was part of a school of writers, the Gothics, who embraced transgression and destruction as a necessary means of the creative process; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, for example, explores this paradoxical relationship, in which artists, writers and scientists suffer psychological disintegration, serving both as ‘creators and destroyers, artists and murderers, heroes and villains’, as the critic Maria Lima puts it.
There are innumerable examples of artists and art-theorists that support the idea that perversion and the unsavoury are vital spirits of the imagination; from Shelley to Rilke, Baudelaire to Oates. However, the value of such art is ultimately found in its reception, i.e. how much an audience enjoys it or is moved by it. While Santaniello posits decent audiences enjoy Abel’s music through desensitisation or disengagement to his lyrics, I would like to argue two theories that may explain how it is possible for audiences to enjoy The Weeknd’s music whilst appreciating the implications of his lyrics.
The first is the artistic finesse with which Abel unites his lyrical content with his instrumentals. The gorgeous sonic composition of his songs in Trilogy characterised by their pulsing electronic soundscapes and elegant vocals, when united with lyrics of debauchery and dehumanisation, bring about a raw, grimy, haunting, and inexplicably sexy experience.
A particularly sophisticated example of this is in House of Balloons, where the instrumental switches from an ecstatic and high-energy beat to a much more menacing one, mirroring Abel’s narration of his drug-induced ‘high’ crashing and descent into paranoia, or how, in the same track, the echoing production mirrors spoken themes of alienation.
The second is how his exploration of transgression enables exploration of the more complex, darker sides of one’s own psychology. Morally gray characters can challenge our capacities for empathy, and present a fascinating challenge as we try to make sense of them and their actions. Indeed, Abel’s musical persona acts on socially forbidden impulses we all (to an extent) have, which we, rightly, would not act on ourselves, but may enjoy (or feel intrigued by) exploring how it would feel to do so.
The lyrics ‘Girl I’ll come and put myself between your legs / Not between your heart’ should be rightly condemned as exploitative, reductive, and frankly shallow. Yet most people have transgressive impulses related to power and masochism, even if we’d never consciously act on them – being able to observe the experience of these impulses being satisfied “from the sidelines” can be pleasantly cathartic. We may be able to enjoy contemplating Abel’s musical persona in the same way we appreciate exploring the psychologies of the manipulative Lady Macbeth, the destructively charismatic Don Juan, Patrick Bateman, or even Amy Dunne from Gone Girl.
Nobody really knows how music affects us so viscerally, and denouncing artwork simply for transgressiveness jeopardises the most democratised way art is currently appreciated. When pulled off well, perversion of the ethical, beautiful, and conventional is a virtue of art to be protected, not demonised.
