Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, kicked off the 2020 MTV VMAs from a dizzying stage above
New York City, framed by fireworks, a helicopter circling overhead, and, of course, flashing
lights. Tesfaye collected the Video of the Year award for his hit track "Blinding Lights,"
and fans chose "Blinding Lights" as the best R&B single of the year. But what was with
Tesfaye's bruised and bloodied face?
On August 27th, just a day before the VMAs, the internet flipped out when Tesfaye was
spotted leaving rehearsal with a face that, well, looked like this. The cuts and bruises
were fake, of course, and it was all for show.
On the cover of his hit album After Hours, Tesfaye appears similarly bruised and bloody,
with a defiant, satisfied expression. It's approximately the same face that he donned
when he performed "Blinding Lights" on the March 7th episode of Saturday Night Live,
although, for that performance, Tesfaye wore a bandaged nose. And real fans know that this
look was more or less the same as when he performed his hit song on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
back in January.
You know the lyrics. The song itself never mentions blood, or getting in a fight. But
by now, Tesfaye's bruises are as much a part of "Blinding Lights" as is its rhythm. So
what's behind the face? As Tesfaye told Esquire,
"'Blinding Lights' [is about] how you want to see someone at night, and you're intoxicated,
and you're driving to this person and you're just blinded by streetlights, but nothing
could stop you from trying to go see that person, because you're so lonely. I don’t
want to ever promote drunk driving, but that’s what the dark undertone is."
His music video is the dramatization of this story and the drunken desperation that permeates
it. The bloody, beaten up face? In the video, that's literally the result of after wandering
through Las Vegas in a drunken haze, and, for no apparent reason, getting into a fight
with two men in black suits, who may or may not be security guards or bouncers. His bloody
face can be seen as the manifestation of his anguish.
Of course, there's another level to the Weeknd's bloody and bruised face: it's capturing the
zeitgeist. Is it really a surprise that the song did so well, considering current events?
Slate thinks not. The song and its accompanying music video, after all, is the perfect midpoint
between "danceable and dark," according to Slate's music writer Chris Molanphy, who called
it, quote, "the chart topper for our time of lonely lockdown." That The Weeknd can keep
singing despite his bruises? In today's world, it's a visceral and poignant reminder to persevere.
So what influenced Tesfaye to express himself in such a disturbing way? His fans know that
this is just part of a larger pattern. Remember the time the internet went wild after Tesfaye
dressed as The Joker for Halloween? Or that time when he went as Beetlejuice, accompanied
by then-girlfriend Bella Hadid, who dressed as Lydia? The singer is drawn like a magnet
to Hollywood horror.
His albums aren't just collections of songs, after all; they're storylines, and their accompanying
videos are often terror-scapes, inspired by Tesfaye's self-professed fascination with
dark, psychologically disturbing films. Take Kiss Land, The Weeknd's debut album, for example.
If you listened to it and got chills, you were supposed to. As Tesfaye told NME, the
album as a whole was meant to embody, quote, "an environment that's just honest fear."
In making it, he drew inspiration from Hollywood horror directors David Cronenberg, John Carpenter,
and Ridley Scott.
"You're out of your mind!"
"You got a better idea?"
Tesfaye directed listeners of Kiss Land,
"When you hear the screams in the record and you hear all these horror references and you
feel scared, listen to the music because I want you to feel what I'm feeling."
Tesfaye told Esquire that The Weeknd is ultimately a persona, and his aim is to make listeners
and video viewers really feel something. He told the magazine,
"It’s definitely a character. When you hear some of the drastic stuff, you can tell. I
mean, that’s why it’s tricky, because it is me singing the words; it is my writing.
It’s like you want people to feel a certain way. You want them to feel angry. You want
them to feel sad. You want them to feel. It’s never, like, my intent to offend anybody."
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