Yet last yearвЂ™s Beauty Behind the Madness enlisted superproducer Max Martin in an all-out effort to turn Tesfaye into the biggest singer in the world the resulting blend of catchiness and depravity worked better than most people predicted.

The musicвЂ™s appeal as noir was powerful, but it was niche. His career began in 2011 with a string of indie releases that took R&BвЂ™s sex obsession to a dark and lewd extreme the mannered, almost angelic quality of his voice made his narratives about disposable women and expensive drugs seem all the more sinister. You can imagine hearing a вЂњstarboyвЂќ comment from the glowering method actor Christian Bale, who once described his profession as вЂњsissy.вЂќДЄnd now Tesfaye is grappling with starboydom. You can imagine hecklers calling Drake вЂњstarboyвЂќ as he grunts on stage about how wrong all those memes about his wimpiness are. Abel Tesfaye, the 26-year-old Torontonian whose Michael Jackson-like croon and Marquis de Sade-like lyrics have become ubiquitous on the radio in the past few years, says the term is inspired by David BowieвЂ™s вЂњStarmanвЂќ and refers to вЂњa braggadocious kind of character who we have inside all of us.вЂќ But on its own, вЂњstarboyвЂќ sounds like a sneer meant for certain male celebrities, guys whose macho pretensions are-fairly or not-undercut by fame. What a perfect name the WeekndвЂ™s new album has: Starboy.

The weeknd die for you sounds like