The Weeknd’s first known trilogy was the start of his expressing his true self to the world and his miserable life.
Around 2011, The Weeknd, Abel Tesfaye, released his first album “House of Balloons” It was released on March 21, 2011. At the start of his career, his songs seemed to be more exotic and dark, dealing with addictions and the idea of being so lonely that you use people.
The first song on the album “High For This” starts very dark, we see how Abel wants to address the audience and the woman in the song, wanting her to partake in dangerous drugs. This is the first time we understand who he is, what he wants, and what he’s willing to do to get it. We meet in persona and how believes that he gets to do what he wants.
In the song “What You Need” he finally gets a hold of the girl from the last song, making her believe that she needs him to fix her broken heart. The first two songs give us the impression that The Weeknd lives this dangerous and disgusting lifestyle, but then we get to understand that he’s miserable.
In the two-part song “House Of Balloons / Glass Table Girls,” which is my favorite song from the trilogy, we see how miserable he is. We find out that he’s at a party taking drugs, but the people want to leave since they’ve had enough, The Weeknd tries to convince them to stay repeatedly saying “This is a happy house” even repeatedly stating that it’s “fun” over and over again, which ends up in him having a mental breakdown. We finally see that he hates being alone and will do whatever it takes to not be alone.
Throughout the album, we see how this is Abel’s true self, the album itself is unspoken commentary. The Weeknd is aware of what he’s doing to the girl he loves but refuses to speak up about the truth, which ends up in a self-confirmed loop. The fear of being alone results in him meeting someone, and then the fear of loneliness comes into play so he begins to manipulate them until they eventually end up leaving. The loop is a constant circle that never ends. We know he wants to be in love, but he has no idea how far off the mark he is from finding it.
In the second part of the trilogy, we have “Thursday.” In this album, we get to see the point of view of one of the women he made fall in love with, Valerie. We see that Valerie ends up realizing the type of person he is, but still loves him for it, and she settles. She can never make him love her enough, The Weeknd only offers what he thinks she wants and she decides to only let him see her Thursday so he doesn’t get sick of her. Abel is using her only for intimacy and SHE knows it. It got so bad that she was trapped.
After being seduced by The Weeknd, she’s become just like him. In “Life Of The Party” Valerie ends up doing things she would never dream of because she seeks The Weeknds Validation, unfortunately, it only makes the cycle worse. In the song “Thursday” we see the point of view of The Weeknd and how he confirms that his relationship with Valerie is one-sided. He only meets her on Thursday and meets with other women on other days. He urges Valerie to wait for Thursday. What this does is that it keeps him on track, it keeps him on a linear path, a path that’s filled with shallowness and pleasure, it helps them be together without any strings attached, it’s what he wants, it takes The Weeknd where he wants to be, the zone.
In the official song “The Zone,” we get to see how meaningless the relation The Weeknd and Valerie is, and in the first verse, we see how he only uses her for intimacy, and by the end, we get the sense that he is losing his humanity. By listening to his music and learning from what happens between The Weeknd and Valerie, we’re connecting to this desire to avoid our fear of manipulation.
After being in the zone and getting what he wants from Valerie, “The Birds Pt. 1,” sees The Weeknd talk to Valerie, letting her know how meaningless their relationship is. Telling her how she shouldn’t think more of it and purely just as “all pleasure, no strings attached.” From what we know, in this song, The Weeknd at some point wanted love or perhaps still does, but he’s scared to love someone who won’t love him back. It’s easier to not care for someone else in his eyes. He constantly tells Valerie not to fall in love because he’s just “a bird,” like a bird, in the summer he might stay and enjoy the company, but will eventually fly off during the winter, looking for something better. The Weeknd warns her, but she ignores it, which results in him cheating on her.
Valerie didn’t listen and she couldn’t handle not having him, so she ended her life in “The Birds Pt. 2.” She knew what would happen, but couldn’t handle the misery, this is what manipulation does. He refers to himself as a bird between the two songs, which usually means or gives the idea of freedom, but by the end of the song, we find out that he isn’t just a bird, he’s a crow. A scavenger, that feeds off the emotional and physical weakness of others, they wait, they attack, and they don’t stop until you are gone.
The rest of Thursday we notice how he’s moved on already, he found a new woman and is doing the same thing he did to Valerie. In “Rolling Stone” we know now for a fact that he is aware of what he does but has no remorse.
In the final part of the Trilogy album, is the remains of his humanity. The “Echoes Of Silence,” starts with a remake of Michael Jacksons song called “Dirty Diana,” but for The Weeknd, it’s referred to “D.D.” This song is one of my favorite songs from Echoes Of Silence, we see the same man with, the same addictions, but now that he’s more known and famous, he no longer has to manipulate women to get what he wants from them.
Despite all this fame, we finally see how he’s so tired of doing what he does. In “Montreal” he sings to himself to “leave the girls alone” or else it’ll be him who gets his heart broken. He keeps searching for a replacement for Valerie after her passing but never finds it. This is the only song throughout the trilogy that he lets his guard down. He has no idea how to handle his fame and power maturely. His fame is no longer his only fear.
The final few songs in this album show him belittling people and calling them worthless, how they are nothing compared to him, but in true fashion, the final song in this Trilogy is unlike any other song. The “Echoes Of Silence” is just piano and The Weeknds voice, almost pure silence. After everything that has taken place, after all the abuse and use of drugs, what goes around finally comes around. The karma that was expected has finally happened. The beginning of the song explains how it isn’t his fault, he calls her a masochist because she knows they didn’t love each other, but still wanted to give The Weeknd everything he wanted regardless. He asks her why she did this and her reply is an answer from someone who embodies The Weeknds perspective, stating “I like the thrill. Nothing gonna make me feel this real.” Even though he said he had no feelings, the final words spoken are perhaps the most honest he’s ever been in the album, stating “So baby don’t go home. I don’t wanna spend tonight alone.”
The entire album of “Trilogy” shows us how pleasure doesn’t last forever, it leads to emptiness. It leaves you wanting more. The album was dark and toxic, but it led fans to want more of what and who this character is. Despite his fame, he still feels unimportant, the final line asks the woman and his fans to not leave his “little life.”