Canadian-born recording artist Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd, released a 6-track EP titled “My Dear Melancholy“ at midnight on March 30. This EP is laced with heartache, sadness and piping hot tea.
Since his third studio album, “Starboy” was released in 2015, Tesfaye has been involved in two widely-recognized relationships: one with Bella Hadid, and the other with Selena Gomez. He and Hadid broke up in 2017 after photos circulated of him and Gomez together. By October, Gomez had publicly re-kindled things with ex Justin Bieber.
Tesfaye laid his heart out on this EP that is full of tracks about breakups he had to survive in the public eye: something that takes a lot of strength to endure.
Track one, “Call Out My Name,” is clearly about his breakup with Gomez, as proven by lines like “We found each other, I helped you out of a broken place / You gave me comfort, but falling for you was my mistake,” and “I almost cut a piece of myself for your life / Guess I was just another pit stop ‘til you made up your mind, you just wasted my time.”
The steady beat and melodic vocal runs in the background allow listeners to journey through the breakup alongside the pair, and man, was it a doozy. Gomez seemed to just decide out of nowhere that going back to the Biebs was a good option, leaving Tesfaye confused about why he ever thought it was a good idea to consider GIVING UP A KIDNEY for her. Guess he dodged a bullet there.
The not-so-subtle shade persists through each song, coming across strong in track three, “Wasted Times.” The opening line “Wasted times, I spent with someone else / She wasn’t even half of you, reminisce at how you felt / And even though you put my life through hell, I can’t seem to forget about you, I want you to myself,” seems to be about Hadid being better than Gomez? Ouch.
And when he says “I ain’t got no business catching feelings anyway,” in regard to going back to Hadid, I FELT that.
This is an EP that you really have to listen to in order to understand how emotional it is. “Melancholy” is really just a blur of memories that listeners get to live through themselves. After listening a few times, my biggest takeaway is hoping that Tesfaye’s year gets better soon.
