Yeah - pretty popular artist. He’s not the Super Bowl programmer’s nephew who needed a break. As another old fart - he’s not the Greatest Artist Ever, but a lot of the songs are pretty good. He does a decent cover of Dirty Diana if you want to compare.
It kind of freaked me out seeing all of those people that close to each other. It’s going to be a while before crowds aren’t scary.
I’m surprised to see so many people likening the Weeknd to rap - his genre is “alternative R&B” if it’s anything.
I like his music because it takes a different tack than a lot of that style of music does - instead of just bragging about how rich he is and how nice his car is and how many women he gets, he sings about being numb to those things - he has the things that he believes are supposed to make him happy, but it brings him no joy.
His collabs with Daft Punk have already been mentioned, but I’m also really fond of the duet with Ariana Grande that was one of his early breakout singles.
You mean his frinds?
I’m familiar with Weeknd and was even looking forward to halftime. I watched it, stone sober, and I didn’t notice / don’t recall most of the things mentioned here. It made that little of an impression on me. I mean, I enjoyed it well enough, but I didn’t catch any of the artistic elements you guys are talking about. Just seemed like him and the dancers,um dancing around. The sound was crap (as usual) but I think he did a good enough job. Just not very memorable. And I too thought Miley Cyrus was going to perform and was looking forward to that also.
Who likened his music to rap - other than my saying it was not as annoying as rap?
I guess my comment:
could be misinterpreted as suggesting that I considered his music to be rap, but just not the more unappealing sort. Instead, I intended the following [clarification added]:
I expected him to be a rapper. [I was mistaken.] His [non-rap] music was more appealing to me than most rap [a different style which I generally dislike], but was pretty unmemorable. Impressed me as just generic dance music.
I am extremely ignorant of most popular music these days. I do not listen to popular music on the radio. In my ignorance, I generally classify most acts I see on SNL and elsewhere as fitting into 2 excessively broad categories, rap and non-rap (for lack of a better term). Most of rap I dislike. The non-rap generally has vocals that follow a tune. Can range from emo whispering to crooning. Some is pleasant or at least innocuous, very little impresses me as memorable. A lot of modern music performances impress me as intending to express messages which are lost on me. The message/posturing often impresses me as exceeding any musical merit.
But I have no desire to impress my preferences on anyone else. If my personal tastes in new music by young artists were widely accepted, maybe we’d see Hawktail at next year’s SB! 
(Not likely!)
He expected him to be a rapper because he’s black. They’re all rappers don’t you know.
I only caught the end of the performance, but I was actually pleasantly surprised. I liked the visual spectacle, and I liked the fact that Mr. Nd could actually sing, in a way that worked well for a Superbowl halftime performance (as opposed to, say, moodily mumbling, or rapping, or letting Autotune do his singing for him).
Another middle-aged Metamucil swiller here who doesn’t ‘get it’ with these new acts. The last young, hip halftime artist I remember kinda sorta getting into was Bruno Mars. Shakira was alright but she’s so 2002.
Bono. Where’s Bono?
Yes, I really am that racist. 
My ignorant impression is that a huge percentage of modern popular music, by artists of all races/ethnicities/genders, is what I ignorantly consider rap. Percentage goes up w/ singers who have - um - atypical names.
You didn’t exactly help yourself with that last sentence, FWIW.
Also, WTF? Most modern pop music is more Arianna Grande than Kendrick Lamar. Considering it all rap is… a take.
Jesus fuck! Observing that a name like “The Weeknd” is atypical is racist?
Also, huge percentage /= all.
Keep your agendas to yourself.
Assuming it’s a rapper because it’s an ‘atypical’ is kinda racist. Is Grimes an atypical name? HAIM? Dua Lipa?
That’s a little harsh. Why is it such a stretch for someone who admittedly isn’t into popular music but knows rap is very popular, to see an unfamiliar, oddly spelled name to assume that act will be rap?
Those examples are (to me) pretty obviously peoples’ names. By atypical, I think he means non standard spellings, like “BigBoi” or “Eminem”.
orr The Beatles
Led Zepplin - rap gods.
Grimes and HAIM aren’t names (HAIM is also all capitalized). U2 is a kind of a non standard spelling as well, right?
And I’ll be honest, I thought the statement I thought everything was rap or non-rap was problematic as well. Sure rap is the most popular genre, but it’s only 21% of all albums consumed: Music album consumption in the U.S. by genre 2018 | Statista
What the hell is problematic w/ that statement?
I didn’t want to try to get into all the various subdivisions of rap or non-rap music. I’ve heard enough rap to know I really don’t like it. I’ve heard the RARE instance of what I consider to be rap music which I consider listenable. That is nothing more than my personal preference, and would be the same whether I heard or saw it. I have seen white/latinx/other rappers, and my dislike for all of their music is in no way based on race.
When I see rap performed, I am confused - or turned off - by much of what I see. Much of it impresses me as considerably more attitude than musicianship. Again, just my personal opinion. One is not allowed to have musical preferences w/o being racist?
Non-rap popular music includes emo whispering, screaming/thrashing, bighat country, R&B, pop ballads… I don’t like much of that (that I have heard), but I find some of it is less annoying than rap.
As far as music I DO like, “some of my favorite musicians are black!” 
It really is bullshit when people like you choose to force their social agendas upon a nonracial discussion. But it happens all the time.
You basically somehow decided to divide all popular music between a genre that accounts for 21% of streamed albums and… everything else. Especially considering Pop music is almost similar to rap music as 20% of streamed albums.
It’s definitely one of the strangest dichotomies I’ve ever seen in dividing music…
But again, Dinsdale admits he’s not familiar with popular music. Undoubtedly he’s misclassifying a lot of music because he doesn’t know the difference. Or is that also racist?
And the Beatles? Led Zeppelin? Really? Not good examples or relevant to this conversation since rap wasn’t (as far as I know) around then.