With the release of his newest album, Hurry Up Tomorrow, The Weeknd has completed his long-awaited trilogy — and possibly the last project under the “The Weeknd” name. Hurry Up Tomorrow, released Jan. 31, now sits with its predecessors: After Hours (2020) and Dawn FM (2022). The artist has had a generational career, standing as Spotify’s second most-streamed artist worldwide in 2024.
His change in name on social media has caused some concern for listeners, but this isn’t the last fans will be seeing of the artist; along with his new installment, he announced a 2025 After Hours Til Dawn stadium tour, which will kick off in Phoenix, Arizona this Spring. Among his recent surprises for fans was a return to the Grammy Awards, officially ending his four-year boycott.
Career Rewind
The Weeknd’s rise to fame in the early 2010s was momentous: with the release of three short albums, House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence, he established himself as a prominent figure in the industry. He then re-released the albums, combining the projects into his first anthology, Trilogy. The following year, he released his sophomore project, Kiss Land.
However, The Weeknd gained the most attention after releasing his 2015 album Beauty Behind The Madness, thanks to the popularity of his songs “The Hills,” “Often,” “I Can’t Feel My Face,” and “Earned It.” A year later, the release of the album Starboy cemented him as a force to be reckoned with due to his two collaborations with Daft Punk, the titular “Starboy” and “I Feel It Coming.”
His 2018 album, My Dear Melancholy, also left a cultural impact with the song “Call Out My Name,” which currently has over two billion streams on Spotify. But, high listening statistics are nothing new to the artist, who in 2024 had the most songs on the platform to hit one billion streams. In celebration, he performed some of his biggest hits at the first-ever Billions Club Live concert. The event was hosted by Spotify on Dec. 17 of last year in Santa Monica, California.
The Weeknd is also known for frequently collaborating with Mike Dean, Future, Kendrick Lamar, Lana del Rey, Ariana Grande, Playboi Carti, and Travis Scott, all of whom have played key roles in increasing the scope of his audience. For him, the early 2010s were a glorious start, but with the 2020s, he could leave much more of an impact.
The Final Trilogy: After Hours, Dawn FM, and Hurry Up Tomorrow
In 2020, The Weeknd released his eighth studio album, After Hours, which featured the viral songs “Blinding Lights” and “Heartless.” He announced that it would be the first album of a trilogy, with the following albums being released roughly every two years. The theme of After Hours saw the character of The Weeknd in a dark place, abusing substances with a very prominent, sinister, dark undertone, which can be drawn from simply looking at the cover.
The second part of the trilogy, Dawn FM, was meant to show the Weeknd in a purgatory of sorts, depicting him on the album cover as an elderly man. Featuring the hit song “Sacrifice,” the album itself is meant to make the listener think about being in the space between heaven and hell, reconsidering the decisions made during life. For the Weeknd, it shows him “seeing the light” and changing his ways.
The final piece of the trilogy, Hurry Up Tomorrow, was a highly anticipated piece for many reasons. In 2023, the artist announced that he would be retiring his stage name and switching to making music under his given name, Abel Tesyafe. Part of the decision had to do with losing his voice while performing at SoFi stadium, which he took as a sign that something had to change. The decision was also motivated by his feelings of disconnect from the name as his career progressed. Hurry Up Tomorrow will likely be Tesyafe’s final project as The Weeknd, and the project is meant to symbolically show him emerging from the long night he has spent in purgatory, going into tomorrow a changed person.
It all goes full circle for The Weeknd; the titular final track, “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” loops perfectly into the first single he ever put out as The Weeknd, “High For This,” signifying that this is really the end of an era.
Tesyafe’s final tour as The Weeknd starts May 9, 2025, in Phoenix, AZ, with opener Playboi Carti and producer Mike Dean as a special guest. According to The Weeknd’s official Instagram, there will be 35 shows spanning 20 US cities from May 9 to Sept. 3. His film based on the album Hurry Up Tomorrow will be available close to the start of the tour, releasing May 16.
A return to the Grammys
Shocking viewers of the 2025 Grammys, The Weeknd graced the stage, ending his four-year boycott of the awards show. The Weeknd previously spoke out against the Recording Academy in 2021, where he vowed to boycott the ceremony after not receiving any nominations for his smash hit After Hours. Expected to be a contender for large awards like Album of the Year, the artist went from planning his performance for weeks with the Academy to the shutout, which he interpreted as uninvited. In a statement to the New York Times, the artist expressed his frustration, stating, “Because of the secret committees, I will no longer allow my label to submit my music to the Grammys.”
Other artists reciprocated his sentiments about the Grammys, both those nominated and those who also felt wronged by the ceremony. The Weeknd joined the ranks of fellow Black artists to publicly boycott the show, including 22-time Grammy winner Jay-Z and two-time winner Frank Ocean. Then, Recording Academy Chair and Interim President Harvey Mason, Jr. responded to the claims, vowing that the Academy would make changes in the future, but this dispute with The Weeknd wasn’t publicly resolved until February 2025.
Mason, now the chief executive officer of the Recording Academy and MusiCares, stepped onto the stage to discuss the changes made to the company. CNN quotes him, “I remember waking up to the headlines that the Weeknd called out the Academy for lack of transparency in our awards. He went so far as to announce he was boycotting the Grammys…That made for some interesting reading over breakfast. But you know what? Criticism is okay. I heard him. I felt his conviction.”
Mason highlighted the Grammys’ changes in light of these criticisms, emphasizing that the organization was evolving with more racially diverse and younger voting members.
He then welcomed the artist back to the Grammys, where he performed his songs “Cry For Me” and “Timeless.”
The end of the Weeknd
With Tesyafe’s stage name officially being retired, this marks the end of an iconic era of darker-toned music that touched billions worldwide. This may end “The Weeknd,” but fans can rest easy knowing Tesyafe isn’t going anywhere. With all he has accomplished so far this year, it’s safe to say 2025 may be the year of The Weeknd.
Tickets are currently available for the After Hours Til Dawn tour so that fans may catch the last moments of The Weeknd. All of the Weeknd’s music, including Hurry Up Tomorrow, is now streaming.