On January 7, 2022, the famed R&B artist, The Weekend, released his newest album. The Weekend, also known as Abel Tesfaye, has been one of the most renowned singers. His previous album, After Hours, was a massive success as it debuted number one on the Billboard charts and marked the most significant first-week sales of 2020 for an album at the time. Due to the previous success of the last album, many fans had high expectations for his newest release. 

The first song starts with an opening track with The Weekend’s classic vocals. The song itself is a great song to open the album; however, it’s a very average song on its own. The melody for the song compliments The Weekend’s vocals and elevates the song to another level. 

The second song of the album, “Gasoline,” is a unique song with a unique flow. The lyrics of this song are meaningful and overall have a good rhythm. The catchy beat also adds to the unique flow that The Weekend incorporates. This song is different from the songs that The Weekend typically creates due to the unique flow. 

The third song of this album, “How Do I Make You Love Me?” is another great song. This song captures a retro style and incorporates a memorable chorus. The upbeat rhythm included in the song also adds to the sense of joy and contrasts with The Weekend’s melodic vocals. The song ends with a great transition into the next song in the album, “Take My Breath.” 

“Take My Breath” is one of the songs released before the album’s release. During the time of its release, many were great fans of this song. It covered all of The Weekend’s talents in singing. This song highlights Tesfaye’s exceptional talent of singing high-notes. Once again, the retro style of the album is implemented. However, the retro style in this song seems to worsen the song’s overall effect. There are many parts of the song with no lyrics, and the same repetitive melody is played. The addition of the retro beat drags out the song longer than it should and takes away from the best parts of the song. 

While the expectations were high for this album, it did not live up to its previous album’s success. Despite not being up to par with After Hours, this album is still a great R&B record that should be played on every road trip.