#442 The Weeknd, 'Beauty Behind the Madness' (2015)

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When I first heard ‘Can’t Feel My Face’ in 2015, little did I know that The Weeknd would become one of the biggest artists in the world. At first I thought he was a low key Michael Jackson tribute artist. I immediately connected with that song and listening to it again on this record, it still holds up. It’s astounding how good this record is. As far as pop in the 2010s go, this is top shelf. The one song that just doesn’t fit in for me is ‘Often.’ What’s up with the lyrics “Baby I can make that pussy rain, often.” Similarly on ‘The Hills.” Dude, Canadians aren’t meant to be as crass as that. 

In its first week of release, this album sold 412,000 units EXCLUDING streaming. That’s A LOT of hard sales in 2015. It’s even a lot of sales in 1985. Ultimately it went on to become the tenth best selling album of the year with 1.5 million copies sold worldwide. It won one Grammy from two nominations, was nominated for an Academy Award for ‘Earned It,’ which was in ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ and was named by Guinness World Records to be the most streamed album from Dec 2014 – Dec 2015 with 60 million unique listeners. That’s roughly 1 listen for every single person in Italy.

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