I have heard the name, but didn’t know it was a person. As an out-of-touch old lady of fifty, I decided to listen with an open mind to see what the young folk are up to these days. As so many people have already said, it was reminiscent of MJ’s sort of dancey pop, and I couldn’t understand the words. It was tolerable, but I really like to be able to hear lyrics.
The songs were pleasant enough. If they were in the background at a party or restaurant - or a dentist’s office, I wouldn’t find them annoying, and might find myself tapping a toe, but nothing that I’d remember or want to hear again.
The vids -
Can’t Feel - pretty boring until he burst into flames. Then it was kinda cool.
Starboy - so what was going on w/ the initial strangling/suffocation, and then what was up w/ the neon cross? I couldn’t understand the lyrics well enough to figure out what was going on.
I Feel It - basically a bunch of SciFi backgrounds. Hot chick first appears as fire, then turns to stone. And was he wearing one of MJ’s old jackets?
The 3 songs all impress me as innocuous fungible overly produced pop. AFAICT, he doesn’t write his own music, and he doesn’t play an instrument. I’m not overly impressed w/ his vocal range/dunamics or stage presence. His dance moves are pretty limited to that little side-to-side shimmy and the mic jerk.
I remember back in the 70s-80s - there was A LOT of crap on top-40 stations. Just because music sells, doesn’t mean it is good, or will be remembered tomorrow.
Several of his videos are setup like episodes in a series to tell a story and he uses lots of symbolism. If I understand correctly ‘Starboy’ takes place after he’s sold his soul to the devil (the guy who throws the lighter in ‘I can’t feel my face’). After selling his soul he finishes the job by killing his old self to become a “Starboy,” Jamaican slang for superstar.
Blinding Lights is another good video but is part of a different story arc and not related to the ones above.
Thanks for the explanation. I guess if I were at a different stage of my life I might find that interesting.
I went through my stages of enjoying over-the-top production and all. Punk enhanced my affinity for stripped down music. Now, I pretty much solely listen to acoustic roots/oldtime music, where is is just the players’ voices/musicianship. Doubt any of my faves will be doing SB halftimes any time soon! 
I didn’t recognize a single song, which is a first for Super Bowl halftime shows. Some cool visuals though. My 17 year old daughters are aware of him but I don’t think they’re particularly fans. One of them thought Miley Cyrus was going to perform. I thought it was a little odd that he and the dancers were all the way down on the grass. I was afraid someone was going to stumble on a divot.
Yeah - I thought the most impressive thing was how quickly they got him down from the rim of the stadium to the field…
Apparently Miley Cyrus performed before the game.
Not a Weeknd fan, I was aware of who he was but didn’t follow his music at all. Now all day today I’ve had the line “I can’t feel my face when I’m with you” stuck in my head playing over and over. Just that line as the whole earworm, because I can’t remember any of the other lyrics. Not sure if seeking out and listening to more of the song will help cure it or make it worse.
This. His voice, when ever I could hear it, sounded pleasant enough; but the sound quality was so bad I only ever got short snippets of melody.
My eighty-something parents were get-the-hell-off-my-lawn-ing about the dancing and effects and how bad the music was; meanwhile, I was thinking, “How can you tell?”
The first time I heard about him was in relation to Drake. Then there was some little entertainment segment several years ago where Tom Cruise was dancing to his song. Not exactly the most niche, hip thing. Then I realized he was the performer of this ubiquitous song that sounded just like Michael Jackson. He’s been mainstream for a long time with a couple big songs. He’s also had some (possibly PR-generated) tabloid relationship stuff with famous reality/model/celeb-spawns/actresses/Bieber-exes to keep him in the social media realm. I understand the music charts are more fragmented than ever and this is a place where people go to brag about not knowing about people with 50 million IG followers or movie stars who’ve been in 20 blockbusters. my experience is almost the opposite - I never seek any of this stuff out and find it completely unavoidable. Anyway, that “I can’t feel my face” song and a couple others have been everywhere for 4-5 years and he’s had several #1s since then but i’ve never seen him perform or sought out his music.
Thanks for the OP - I thought it was just me!
But I’m really old school - Why not marching bands or cheer athletics.
They did marching bands for a long time – up through the early '90s, in fact. And, the saccharine group Up With People performed five times. But, in 1993, they had a big-name pop star (Michael Jackson) perform for the first time, which proved to be very popular, and they never went back to the marching bands.
I think this has been the first time that the halftime performer has been someone I’ve never heard of, and if I’d ever heard any of his songs before, I didn’t recognize them.
I also couldn’t understand any of the lyrics, but I assumed that the weird jock-straps-on-head dancers, as well as the way they spaced out over the whole field, were some sort of commentary on how COVID and social distancing are harming human interaction, or something along those lines. For those who knew the songs, were the lyrics consistent with that?
It wasn’t. The masks were supposed to be bandages and a commentary on Hollywood beauty standards (as is referenced in his music videos relating to his latest album):
Yeah, this.
Would it kill them, just once, to have a string quartet playing the slow movement of the Hamerklavier Sonata?
Which they did because they were actually losing the ratings battle during half-time.
I’d never heard of him. Yes, I’m old.
Those rectangles of lights in the background were I assumed supposed to be city buildings. Then Mr. Middon remarked they looked like gravestones to him. Given the bandaged faces, I’m thinking his interpretation is right.
I really like the catchy keyboard lead in Blinding Lights. I’ve been hearing it around in places for about the last year but never in a context where I could easily look up the artist or title. Then, I started to notice it was being played in some NFL promotional videos and made a guess to search the Super Bowl entertainment and quickly found the title. It’s just a good hook.
Main part starts around 50 seconds> The Weeknd - Blinding Lights (Synthesizer COVER) - YouTube
I have heard he is the largest employer in the country.
Everybody’s working for The Weeknd.
SDMB members haven’t heard of incredibly famous and popular person, wow who’d have guessed that!?
The bandages and red jackets of the dancers reminded me of the movie “Us.”