Dawn FM

by The Weeknd

Overview

"Blinding Lights" artistically and commercially was so optimal for Abel Tesfaye that it quickly became his signature song, and was only two years old when Billboard announced that it had rocketed past Chubby Checker's "The Twist" to claim the title of all-time number one hit. For the follow-up to "Blinding Lights" parent album After Hours, Tesfaye delves deeper into the early- to mid-'80s pop aesthetic. He resurfaces with a conceptual sequel designed as a broadcast heard by a motorist stuck in a purgatorial tunnel. The primary collaborators are "Blinding Lights" co-producers Max Martin and Oscar Holter, plus fellow After Hours cohort Daniel Lopatin, whose airwaves-themed 2020 LP Magic Oneohtrix Point Never was executive produced by Tesfaye. Instead of scrambled voices like those heard on the OPN album, Dawn FM features recurrent announcements from Jim Carrey as a serene and faintly creepy character, or maybe himself, intonating end-of-life entertainment and counsel. The other unlikely appearances -- Quincy Jones with a spoken autobiographical interlude, Beach Boy Bruce Johnston somewhere in the cocksure "how it's going" outlier "Here We Go...Again" -- are ostentatious. In the main, this is a space for Tesfaye to fully indulge his frantic romantic side as his co-conspirators whip up fluorescent throwback Euro-pop with muscle and nuance. Tesfaye's almost fathomless vocal facility elevates even the most rudimentary expressions of co-dependency, despair, regret, and obsession, and he helps it all go down easier with station ID jingles and an amusingly hyped-up ad for "a compelling work of science fiction" called (the) "After Life." The set peaks early with a sequence of dejected post-disco jams that writhe, percolate, and chug. Most of these songs surpass the bulk of Daft Punk's similarly backward-gazing Random Access Memories, projecting the same lust for life with underlying existential doom as Italo disco nuggets such as Ryan Paris' "Dolce Vita." Toward the end of that first-half stretch, Tesfaye reaffirms his R&B roots and affinity for Michael Jackson with a cut built from Alicia Myers' 1981 gospel boogie classic "I Want to Thank You." After that, it slows down and stretches out a bit to varying effect, dipping into Japanese city pop for the bittersweet and remorseful "Out of Time" and edging ever so achingly toward Latin freestyle with "Don't Break My Heart." Just before Carrey's epilogue, Tesfaye and company pick up the pace with "Less Than Zero." Rather than use the title as a prompt to sink back into detailing debauchery, Tesfaye makes the song this album's "Scared to Live," a sentimental ballad that's hard to resist. ~ Andy Kellman

Product Details

Release Date:	04/29/2022
Label:	Island / Republic
UPC:	0602445401284

Album Credits

Performance Credits

The Weeknd   Primary Artist,Bass,Drums,Keyboards
Agents of Time   Primary Artist
Kaytranada   Primary Artist
Summer Walker   Primary Artist
Swedish House Mafia   Primary Artist,Bass,Keyboards
Creator   Primary Artist
Tyler, The Creator   Primary Artist
Lil Wayne   Primary Artist,Featured Artist
Mike Dean   Primary Artist
Sebastian Ingrosso   Primary Artist
Oneohtrix Point Never   Primary Artist
Salvatore Ganacci   Primary Artist
Tyler   Primary Artist
Abel Tesfaye   Vocals (Background)
OPN   Keyboards
DaHeala   Keyboards
Joanna Wallfisch   Choir/Chorus
Rex Kudo   Keyboards
Charlie Coffeen   Keyboards
Elvira Anderfjaerd   Vocals (Background)
Bri Holland   Choir/Chorus
Benny Bock   Keyboards
Rachel Panchal   Choir/Chorus
Sarah Margaret Huff   Choir/Chorus
Shellback   Drums
Magnus Sjoelander   Percussion
Sara Mann   Choir/Chorus
Christian Love   Vocals (Background)
Angela Parrish   Choir/Chorus
Mattias Johansson   Violin
Jessica Rotter   Choir/Chorus
Katie Hampton   Choir/Chorus
Brian Kennedy   Keyboards
Colombier   Choir/Chorus
David Bukovinszky   Cello
Anna Davidson   Choir/Chorus
The Creator   Featured Artist
Tyler Okonma   Featured Artist
Matt Cohn   Drums,Keyboards
Oscar Holter   Bass,Drums,Guitar,Keyboards
Jim Carrey   Voices
Quincy Jones   Voices
Max Martin   Bass,Drums,Guitar,Keyboards,Vocals (Background)
Josh Safdie   Voices
Carl Nordstrom   Bass,Keyboards
Peter Noos Johansson   Trombone
Mattias Bylund   Strings
Bruce Johnston   Vocals,Keyboards
Calvin Harris   Keyboards

Technical Credits

Matt Cohn   Composer,Engineer,Producer,Vocal Arrangement,Programming
Abel Tesfaye   Composer
OPN   Producer,Programming,Executive Producer
Peter Lee Johnson   Composer,Producer
Shin Kamiyama   Engineer
DaHeala   Producer,Programming
Salvatore Ganacci   Remix Engineer
Agents of Time   Remix Engineer
Kaytranada   Remix Engineer
Joanna Wallfisch   Group Member
Rex Kudo   Composer,Producer,Programming
Jeremy Lertola   Engineer
Charlie Coffeen   Composer,Producer,Programming
Gitty   Producer,Composer
Summer Walker   Composer
Bryce Bordone   Mixing Engineer,Mixing Assistant
Bri Holland   Group Member
Andrea Di Ceglie   Composer
Luigi Tutolo   Composer
David Bishop   Engineer
Benny Bock   Composer,Producer,Programming
RJ Cardenas   Engineer
Ayanna Christie Brown   Composer
Tetsuro Harada   Composer
Rachel Panchal   Group Member
Michele Caraglia   Composer
Sarah Margaret Huff   Group Member
Jeff Gitty   Composer,Producer
Calvin Harris   Programming,Producer
Jeff Gitelman   Composer,Producer
Martin Karl Sandberg   Composer
Jasper Randall   Choir Arrangement
David Kutch   Mastering,Mastering Engineer
Tommy Brown   Composer,Producer
Wendy Goldstein   A&R
Oneohtrix Point Never   Remix Engineer,Producer
Sara Mann   Group Member
Christian Love   Composer
Sam Holland   Engineer
Swedish House Mafia   Producer,Remix Engineer,Drum Programming
Angela Parrish   Group Member
Jessica Rotter   Group Member
Katie Hampton   Group Member
Brian Kennedy   Composer,Producer,Programming
David Wolter   A&R
Ahmad Balshe   Composer
Jason Quenneville   Composer
Axel Hedfors   Composer
Adam Wiles   Composer
Daniel Lopatin   Composer
Oscar Holter   Programming,Vocal Producer,Composer,Producer
Vic Wainstein   Engineer
The Weeknd   Producer,Programming,Executive Producer
Giulio Abbattista   Mixing,Mastering Engineer
Anna Davidson   Group Member
Tomoko Aran   Composer
Tyler Okonma   Composer
Colombier   Group Member
Serban Ghenea   Mixing
Axwell   Composer
Kevin McCord   Composer
Kevin Peterson   Assistant Mastering Engineer
John Hanes   Engineer,Mixing Engineer
Lil Wayne   Composer
Michael Ilbert   Engineer
Jim Carrey   Composer
Quincy Jones   Composer
Max Martin   Composer,Producer,Programming,Vocal Producer,Executive Producer
Mike Dean   Mixing,Remix Engineer,Mastering Engineer
Michel Colombier   Group Member
Steve Angello   Composer
Sebastian Ingrosso   Composer,Remix Engineer
Kenneth Jarvis III   A&R
Carl Nordstrom   Composer,Producer,Drum Programming
Bruce Johnston   Composer,Producer,Programming,Vocal Arrangement