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Canadian singer-songwriter The Weeknd seems to be on the verge of releasing his long-awaited new album. In a series of posts across his social media accounts starting on January 5, 2024, the artist teased what could be his next full-length project.
The inclusion of his previous albums, like 2022's Dawn FM and 2020's After Hours, followed by a question mark, suggests that this could be the final album in a trilogy.
Born Abel Tesfaye, The Weeknd's Blinding Lights is currently the most streamed song on Spotify, with nearly 4 billion streams. The song is from the album After Hours, which, along with its follow-up Dawn FM, has been certified platinum. With his popularity at an all-time high, fans are excited for the comeback of the king, as they call him.
If the rumors are true, this will be the second time that The Weeknd has released an album trilogy. The singer's breakout success came with the release of three mixtapes in 2011, namely Echoes of Silence, Thursday, and House of Balloons. Each release in that trilogy had a consistent musical theme and similar album covers too.
Fan reactions to The Weeknd teasing the release of a new album in the trilogy
With a slew of diamond-certified singles and over 75 million records sold, fans are understandably excited at the thought of getting a new full-length album from the hitmaker after two years. Netizens are particularly eager to see how the singer manages to keep the synthpop identity of his previous two records in the trilogy while evolving his sound.
The cryptic tweets by the artist over the past few days on Instagram and X also led to much speculation about what it could all mean. The number 3 was consistent across all of his posts, leading to the theory of it being an album trilogy.
Some fans even wondered if the question mark was supposed to be the actual artwork for the upcoming album or simply a placeholder. This isn't the first time Abel has used the question mark as a viral marketing tactic. In 2018, the singer's tweet of the symbol went viral, something longtime fans still remember.
More about The Weeknd's forthcoming album
Abel previously hinted at After Hours and Dawn FM being part of a trilogy in a tweet from January 11, 2022. Shortly after the release of Dawn FM, the artist took to his official X account to post the following cryptic message:
"i wonder… did you know you’re experiencing a new trilogy?"
In 2023, the singer hinted at dropping his stage name after this forthcoming album. In an interview with W Magazine from May 8, 2023, he said:
“The album I’m working on now is probably my last hurrah as The Weeknd. This is something that I have to do. As The Weeknd, I’ve said everything I can say.”
With so much anticipation surrounding the final album in this trilogy and possibly being his last album under The Weeknd stage name, expectations are at an all-time high for Abel's next project. Given his track record on the Billboard charts, the Canadian singer is bound to have one of the year's biggest releases.
