Darkness, drama and Daft Punk: The best songs by The Weeknd – ranked! | The Weeknd

20. Kiss Land (2013)

Abel Tesfaye's first proper album was received with lukewarm reception and sold mediocre numbers – a relative misstep. But it has its charms, including the seven-minute, two-part title track: perhaps too opaque and ambitious to be released as a single, but with a dark power in its roiling synth accompaniment.

19. Tell Your Friends (2015)

Co-written by Kanye West, among others—the '70s soul-influenced intro would have been a perfect fit for “The College Dropout”—”Tell Your Friends” is a ballad that muses on fame in ambiguous terms. It's fascinatingly unclear whether the lyrics are boastful or trite, a litany about the fruits of success or a commentary on the insignificance of said fruits.

18. Take My Breath (2021)

Dawn FM's first single, Take My Breath, is fantastic: euphoric disco house with a synth riff reminiscent of Daft Punk's Da Funk, and an icy edge from the lead vocals. But it's best heard on the album: the transition from the stark How Do I Make You Love Me? is, well, breathtaking.

17. Starboy (ft Daft Punk) (2016)

The fact that “Starboy” was written in 30 minutes, based on a beat found on Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo’s phone, says a lot about how smooth and successful the collaboration between The Weeknd and Daft Punk was: The result – mid-paced, elegant but sad – sold a whopping 11 million copies in the US.

16. Save Your Tears (2020)

On any other album—or rather, an album that didn't include “Blinding Lights”—”Save Your Tears” would be the clear smash hit: a fabulous reinterpretation of choppy synthpop with a stunning melody that cleverly delves deep into the indescribable melancholy lurking in many '80s anthems.

15. Call My Name (2018)

A triple platinum single that eventually led to a plagiarism lawsuit from a duo called Epikker—their case, in which they claimed all sorts of shady dealings, was settled out of court. But forget the legal drama and listen to the actual song: it's a powerful, emotive ballad with a monochrome creepiness to the production that hits hard at whoever wrote it.

14. Memory (2016)

Another of Starboy's million-sellers and the closest album to straight-up R&B as it gets, “Reminder” defied critics who claimed The Weeknd was leaning too far toward pop – “I'm like, damn, bitch, I'm not Teen Choice” – and enlisted a number of big hip-hop names to make cameos in its video to drive home the point.

13. The House of Balloons / Girl at the Glass Table (2011)

An early sign of Tesfaye's continued interest in the '80s, it's built around a sample from Siouxsie and the Banshees' “Happy House,” while the lyrics lean into the track's suggestion that happiness is rarely what it seems: as the song progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that the party it describes has spiraled completely out of control.

12. Faith (2020)

Falsetto vocals and fantastic, slowly building production, courtesy of Metro Boomin, frame what appears to be a saga of a lost weekend in Vegas, and indeed of the Weeknd lost in Vegas: intended as Tesfaye's farewell to a hedonistic era of his life, it all ends in grief in the back of a police car.

11. The Party and the Afterparty (2011)

A long two-part track embodying the sleazy persona first appeared on Tesfaye's first mixtape trio: obsessive, manipulative, damaged, stoned. The trick is to surround the lyrics with music that makes a total creep seem somehow strangely irresistible: an appealingly spacey, disjointed production based on a sample from indie band Beach House.

10. Deserved (2014)

Given the persona he embodied, Tesfaye was perhaps an obvious choice for the soundtrack to the glossy S&M film Fifty Shades of Grey. Nevertheless, he really pulled out all the stops on Earned It – the dramatic, '60s-style string pop ballads were an unexpected change, his vocals soulful and powerful.

9. Aim High (2011)

The opening track of his debut mixtape, and the world's introduction to The Weeknd, it's an immediately striking performance: the music features dark, disturbing electronic sounds, the lyrics attempt to persuade a seemingly unwilling partner to either take drugs or have sex, or both. It's incredibly dark, disturbing, and unforgettable.

8. Less than Zero (2022)

The title comes from Bret Easton Ellis's debut novel – a marathon of coke-fuelled boredom – and was the Dawn FM track that most clearly evoked After Hours' obsession with '80s synthpop. It's a brilliant piece of songwriting: incredibly catchy, richly melodic and far more downbeat than its brisk rhythm suggests.

7. The Birds, Part 1 (2011)

The highlight of The Weeknd's second mixtape, The Birds, Pt 1, pits a clanking military drumbeat against moody synths and feedback-laden guitar, all the more unsettling for how understated it is in the mix. The lyrics warn of a girl in love: the acoustic coda speaks of genuine self-loathing and desperation, rather than you-can't-handle-me big-picture reality.

6. I Can't Feel My Face (2015)

Pop super-producer Max Martin made his money here: “Can't Feel My Face” catapulted The Weeknd from celebrated R&B star to pop sensation by stuffing a song that everyone immediately knew was a metaphorical paean to cocaine with so many exuberant hooks that the subject matter no longer mattered.

5. I feel it coming (2016)

Another collaboration with Daft Punk, “I Feel It Coming” channels the spirit of “Off the Wall”-era Michael Jackson via a slowed-down version of the super-smooth disco sound the French duo had been pursuing, offering the listener The Weeknd’s unusual sound of straightforward romanticism: deservedly a huge hit.

4. After Work (2020)

“After Hours” starts in typical Weeknd style: echoing guitar, falsetto vocals, spooky electronic atmosphere. But over the course of six minutes, it gradually picks up speed and turns into an electro-house track, without ever quite getting rid of the initial unease: it still feels dark and ominous even as it drives you to the dance floor.

3. Blinding Lights (2019)

Its record-breaking success made Blinding Lights less of a hit than a fact of everyday life. There was no escaping it and its later influence: its '80s pastiche sound inspired a number of hits by other artists. That it somehow withstood overuse and imitation says something about its quality: it still sounds strangely fresh.

2. Evil Games (2011)

The Weeknd's debut single summed up the sound and mood of Tesfaye's first mixtapes in a nutshell: gloomy lo-fi music, passionate vocals, lyrics that are alternately intentionally reprehensible and tormented by their own lack of morality. She carves authentically appealing pop music out of deeply unlikely source material: no wonder it attracted attention.

1. The Hills (2015)

In some ways, The Hills was The Weeknd's return to the style that had made him famous—it's certainly considerably less poppy than I Can't Feel My Face or Earned It. But it offered a kind of widescreen version of the sound of his mixtape Trilogy, the musical equivalent of an acclaimed indie director successfully crossing over into mainstream Hollywood. Everything is sharper, bigger, more distinctive, without losing the unsettling power that drew people in in the first place; it compressed his episodic song structures into four eventful minutes. He's had bigger hits, but The Hills is perhaps the track you'd play to explain to someone why The Weeknd stood out.