The album is the third and final installment in a trilogy that began with “After Hours” (2020) and continued with “Dawn FM” (2022). Fans have speculated that these three albums mirror the structure of Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy,” which is broken into three parts: “Inferno” (hell), “Purgatorio” (purgatory) and “Paradiso” (heaven).
Indeed, “After Hours” follows the persona of the Weeknd as he retreats from Los Angeles to Las Vegas (“Sin City”) in a vain attempt to escape the hell that his lust and dependence on drugs have created around him. Moreover, in both the album cover and the video content of “After Hours,” The Weeknd is shown wearing a garish red suit and often grinning and dancing maniacally.
“Dawn FM,” an album heavy with interludes, is framed as a fictional radio station playing music and advertisements that encourage the listener to surrender to the afterlife — a transition into peace and oblivion which could symbolically be interpreted as purgatory. The Weeknd, though still struggling, reflects on his mistakes and begins to see an escape from his self-inflicted suffering.
Following the pattern of Dante’s “Inferno,” “Hurry Up Tomorrow” should be representative of paradise. Sonically, this holds true. “Hurry Up Tomorrow” is blissful and euphoric. Continuing the bouncy ‘80’s synths (courtesy of producer Mike Dean) which have become a trademark of his music, the tracks are blended silkily to create a unified, coherent listening experience that sounds like one extended lullaby.
Yet, lyrically, the album is less of an enjoyment of a restful paradise as it is a continued struggle to escape the same temptations that have haunted The Weeknd’s music for fourteen years. In “Open Hearts,” The Weeknd describes how battered his previous grasps at love have left him: “Cover my scars / When I open my arms / It’s never easy falling in love again.”
In “Reflections Laughing,” a telephone call skit interrupts the track, during which a presumed lover of The Weeknd leaves a message in which she voices her fear that he is once again succumbing to an over-reliance on substances. Another interesting snippet of this skit is the lover’s mention of The Weeknd straining to get through a show, which could be a reference to when The Weeknd was forced to end a show in Sept. 2022 early after losing his voice.
Death is also a central theme in “Hurry Up Tomorrow.” In an interview with “Variety,” Abel Tesfaye —The Weeknd’s real name — mentioned that this album will mark the end of his releasing music under The Weeknd moniker and persona.
“You have a persona, but then you have the competition of it all,” Tesfaye said. “It becomes this rat race: more accolades, more success, more shows, more albums, more awards and more No. 1’s. It never ends until you end it.”
“‘Don’t overstay at the party — you can end it now and live a happy life,’” Tesfaye said. “Put the bow on it: ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow’? Now we’re here. When is the right time to leave, if not at your peak? Once you understand who I am too much, then it’s time to pivot.”
These sentiments are echoed almost verbatim in “Enjoy the Show,” when The Weeknd sings: “I just wanna die when I’m at my f— peak.” In “Baptized in Fear,” The Weeknd sings about a half-seen silhouette watching him from the shadows, perhaps some sort of reaper representing his impending demise: “Figure in the corner I can’t quite see / I just know the shadow’s staring at me / It gets closer, it gets closer, it gets closer now.” The tracks “Abyss” and “Big Sleep” also suggest passing away.
“Hurry Up Tomorrow,” the final and titular track, sees The Weeknd repent for his sinful ways for good and embrace the afterlife with optimism: “And I hope that I’ll find what I’m looking for/ I hope that He’s watching from up above.” In the last lines of the album, he sings: “No, I need heaven after life / I want heaven when I die / I wanna change / I want the pain no more, no more, no more.”
And, rather than killing The Weeknd persona indefinitely, Tesfaye uses the end of the album to send listeners back to the beginning of his music, where the desires, temptations and vices of The Weeknd will be forever memorialized behind that friendly mask of smooth, mesmerizing R&B. “Hurry Up Tomorrow” transitions into the beginning of “High For This,” the opening track on “House of Balloons,” the first project ever released by The Weeknd in 2011.
Excluding Anitta’s Brazilian-funk chorus on “São Paulo,” which borders on irritating, all of the features on this album are fantastic. Travis Scott’s deepened, distorted vocals on the second half of “Reflections Laughing” provide a dark undertone. Future’s soft singing on “Enjoy the Show” suggests that he, too, is an artist (or persona) exhausted by the requirements of fame, and his wailing in the chorus of “Given Up On Me” adds an element of agony to the track.
Lana Del Rey’s aching vocals weave in beautifully in “The Abyss.” In what is perhaps the best track on the album, Playboi Carti’s opening verse in “Timeless” (which was released as a single in Sep. 2024 and has already amassed more than half a billion streams on Spotify) gels with the bouncy, vibrant instrumentals.
I give this album a 9.7/10. Barring “São Paulo,” there are no skips; early frontrunners for best track are “Open Hearts,” “Timeless” and “Cry For Me.” The high quality of music remains consistent throughout. The album is the fully-realized masterpiece of one of the top artists of our time at the height of his talent. It is the perfect, full-circle ending to The Weeknd’s incredible run.
