For quite a while now, The Weeknd has notably approached his artistry as if each of his major studio albums marked a unique chapter in his career. Throughout the first half of this year, Abel has been reaping the rewards from his previous chapter, the After Hours era. The Weeknd’s success of that two-year period has been irrefutable, as he has made history with Billboard Hot 100 records and even became the first solo Canadian artist to headline the Super Bowl.
A handful of months ago, however, the Trilogy artist appeared to tease the next chapter in his career by posting a now-deleted close-up photo of him in a dark fisherman-esque costume with the caption “the dawn is coming….” The Weeknd has since wiped his Instagram clean and started over completely, and he also recently hit Twitter and incited pure chaos by tweeting, “f*ck it … IT STARTS TONIGHT.”
This has led many of his fans to assume that “The Dawn Era” would officially be in full swing soon, and to fuel hype even more, The Weeknd shared a one-minute and forty-one-second teaser for an untitled track. Stylistically, it remains similar to the nostalgic synth-pop that he previously experimented with on Starboy and deeply explored on After Hours, but it also appears to be longer and more free-form like his early output on his Trilogy mixtapes.
Naturally, The Weeknd’s fans are currently losing their minds, so check out some of their reactions on Twitter below.