From an artist who swims so deftly through the drug addled and salacious, “Twenty Eight” is a bucket of ice water. The song details The Weeknd (the stage name of Abel Tesfaye) and a loss of innocence, of sorts, to the cold realities of celebrity and fame.
The Weeknd’s slew of mixtapes and his major label debut, the composite album Trilogy, positioned the Canadian crooner so comfortably within the chaos and sadism of the nights you can’t remember that it’s impossible to envision him in circumstances that aren’t completely under his control.
The Weeknd is usually the anchor, the bard of the blackouts, which is what makes “Twenty Eight” so appealing. “Hey there lonely girl,” he sings to a gossipy groupie. “Do you have to tell your friends about the way I got you screaming my name?” Half seduction, half menace, the question reveals a vulnerability quite alien to an artist who, in his early ascendance, stuck to the shadows of the Internet like a puppetmaster while his dark and indulgent R&B did the talking.
“I’m so wrong, I’m so wrong, I’m so wrong,” he laments as drumbeats swoop down to reintroduce the chorus. For once, after 27 songs of playing the jaded and knowing partier telling other what to do, The Weeknd is sweating. Finally, the weakness is his; bared over little more than a haunting piano chord that lends his voice even more tortured gravitas than usual.