Beauty Behind the Madness: The Weeknd and the Changing Shape of Pop Persona

When House of Balloons dropped in 2011, The Weeknd didn’t seem like your typical popstar. Rather than a carefully orchestrated PR campaign, here was an immaculately produced mixtape that was fully formed, less a rough-edged debut than an assertive statement, something imbued with purpose yet cloaked beneath impenetrable anonymity. House of Balloons – and, to…

Extended Cut: Kanye West – Yeezus (2013)

(Extended Cut posts are articles where I’ll exceed my usual 200-word limit to allow for more detailed discussion) ““Dark Fantasy” was my long, backhanded apology … It’s always going to be 80 percent, at least, what I want to give, and 20 percent fulfilling a perception.” –          Kanye West, on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,…