The Weeknd Discography

The Weeknd Biography

Abel Makkonen Tesfaye (Amharic: አቤል መኮንን ተስፋዬ; born February 16, 1990), known professionally as the Weeknd, is a Canadian singer-songwriter and actor. Recognized for his unconventional musical production, artistic reinventions, and signature falsetto register, Tesfaye is one of the most innovative and influential artists of his generation. Tesfaye began releasing music anonymously in 2009. After co-founding the record label XO, he released three mixtapes—House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence—in 2011, and gained recognition for his blend of contemporary and alternative R&B, as well as the mystery surrounding his identity. He signed with Republic Records to reissue the mixtapes into the compilation album Trilogy (2012), and release his debut studio album, Kiss Land (2013) the following year. After a string of collaborations and film soundtrack contributions from 2013 and 2014, Tesfaye transitioned from alternative R&B to a pop sound with his second and third studio albums, Beauty Behind the Madness (2015) and Starboy (2016), both of which debuted atop the US Billboard 200. The former yielded his first two US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles, "Can't Feel My Face" and "The Hills", while Starboy spawned two more: its title track (featuring Daft Punk), and after a 2023 remix with Ariana Grande, "Die for You". He returned to alternative R&B for his debut extended play, My Dear Melancholy (2018), which included the US top-ten single "Call Out My Name". He explored the dream-pop and new wave genres with his fourth studio album, After Hours (2020), which spawned the record-setting single, "Blinding Lights", in which became the most-streamed song of all time on Spotify, broke records as the longest-charting song in Billboard Hot 100 history, and was named the chart's best-performing song of all time. Other chart-topping singles from the album included "Heartless" and "Save Your Tears" with the latter gaining renewed popularity after a...