After Hours

Yeah, I think this will age better than people think, very strong and introspective tracks on here.

It's pretty remarkable that this is a mainstream pop record. Credit for pushing the boundaries. I'm a big fan of the really early music that he released for free with Beach House samples and real dark vibes.

I tried to like this but the dream-pop, repetitive drum machine and his high pitched vocals really got under my skin. The only redeeming thing about this album was Blinded by the light.

There's a few certified bops here, for sure. But as a whole album? This just felt bloated, bland, and boring. It's a shame, from the singles and lots of features I know him from, I had high hopes for this, but it just wasn't for me.

The image, overprompted, persists: A man following you more-or-less obvious, protesting innocence pain & contrition. After Hours puts musical effort into the not-dance, creating quite a contrast with the singles. When they enter the mix, they complicate. A less extravagant project, a promising direction, a record that pulls the last punch.

Some immense talent on display here. Thanks for sharing!

One of the most, if not the most important artist nowadays. Great album. The side B of the record is majestic.

I really wanted to dislike this album. I really did. It's a 3/5 easy but Blinding Lights and Save Your Tears and legit pop bangers worthy of an extra star. 4/5.

Good listen all the way through. Thanks for suggesting.

A recent classic. Very strong effort from Abel. If it had been shorter and had included a few more songs of the same quality as "Blinding Lights", "Save Your Tears", "In Your Eyes" or even "After Hours", we would be talking about the "Thriller" of our time

Powerful beats, great voice, fantastic to listen to.

I had no idea that The Weeknd was the #1 streaming artist on Spotify, as well as maybe this album? I have heard a few tracks from The Weeknd but could not have told you who they were by. That said, this was better than I thought. Musically the beats and blooming synths sound great on their own, which unfortunately are brought down to earth by the vocals one-dimensionality. He’s kinda like the new T-Pain with the use of auto tune here, although it’s not a strongly used. Lyrically it’s all about longing and wanting that person back, which is so boring in pop music to me but… it’s universal and what you’d wanna sing about to get the most fans, for sure. Overall not bad. Although I wouldn’t go out of my way to listen, it wouldn’t also make me immediately reach to turn it off. Win?

Favorite part: drum programming Least favorite part: vocals

I can get into this. If I listen to a lot of The Weeknd it starts sounding whiney, but this is a cohesive album with a lot of strong songs. "Save Your Tears" really jumped out on this listen for some reason. May have been because it was reminding me "Apocalypse" by Cigarettes After Sex.

I enjoyed this, but it's hard not to compare it to similar-vein greats like Prince and find it lacking.

This album is extremely boring and extremely popular. Abel's voice is really grating to me - it's so high and so robotic. He hits the right notes but has absolutely zero emotion. Basically the two popular songs are decent and everything else is so mid. 5/10

5/10. Well, I think that was enough autotune to keep me satisfied for a few years. Not bad by any means, and there were some nice lyrics as well, but I don't really like the overall sound that much.

It was a decent album. I recognized several of the songs. Each song sounded very similar. It was also a little long.

Annoying. 2/5

I remember seeing advertisements for this album on television. Therefore, I find this way too 'in the face'. Also, the excess of way to obvious autotune bothers me a bit too much. I bobbed my head on 'Blinding Lights', but that's almost it.

Wow, the first single off this album has over 4 billion streams on Spotify since it came out in 2020! That is truely impressive. And with my exposure to The Weekend being limited to only a few radio-hits (among which Blinding Lights) I had some good hopes that the rest of this album would also be packed in that lovely 80's poppy-synth sound. Too bad though. I'm probably too old to 'understand' this, but this album is driving me nuts. In a bad way. Very well produced and catchy, but oily slik, falsetto wining and awfully bland lyrics. With the chance of insulting a whole generation: I'll skip the Weekend and will go right into Monday.

Ik weet dat dit heel hip en happening is, maar ik vind het toch allemaal iets te gelikt.

I tried, I really did, but this just isn't interesting to me. 2 stars.

I do not care for this and that’s o.k.

Instantly forgettable

2 hits and the rest the same repetitive female vocal sound