“The Weeknd blends the pop vocal likeness of Michael Jackson and blends it with the outrun style of Kavinsky, and it just works!”
At last, we have the video for “Blinding Lights” and it’s an epic one! For the last couple of years, The Weeknd has befriended the likes of Daft Punk and Kavinsky which hinted the ideas of him expanding into the synthwave/synthpop genre along with his hip-hop and r&b style of music. The last time The Weeknd has dabbled into this genre was in his last studio album called “Starboy” which featured Daft Punk (who also co-produced the album) that was released back in 2016. The singles of "Starboy” and “I Feel It Coming” really showed The Weeknd’s artistic vision for the synthpop sub-genre. The vision for this song is way more intense, The Weeknd blends the pop vocal likeness of Michael Jackson and blends it with the outrun style of Kavinsky, and it just works!
This video is a continuation of “Heartless” which was released back in December, and gave out his stylistic approach for this upcoming album. The Weeknd released “Heartless” and “Blinding Lights” on the same week, and both share that retro feeling although “Heartless” is more on the hip-hop/r&b side of things; but still a great video! If you haven’t seen “Heartless” I would recommend it, because it involves a frog (i’m serious). And this video starts off where “Heartless” left off, and it shows his epic journey from the neon streets of Las Vegas back to the dark city of Los Angeles.
The Weeknd has been very open about his musical influences, and you can defiantly feel the presence of Michael Jackson. It somehow reminds me of “Thriller” maybe because of the red jacket and the MJ style of dancing in some parts of the video; but cinematography has a hence of “Drive” & “Blade Runner” which is amazing. The director Anton Tammi really did a great job with both videos, and truly captures the story along with these tracks!
Synth Zone Score: 10/10
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