Beauty Behind the Madness

Background

On September 10, 2013, The Weeknd released his debut album Kiss Land. It was promoted by three singles: "Kiss Land", "Belong to the World", "Live For" featuring Drake, and The Weeknd's The Fall tour beginning during September 2013. Kiss Land received generally positive reviews from critics. Kiss Land debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 96,000 copies, just two thousand copies short of Keith Urban's Fuse, which took the number one spot on the week.

In 2013, in an interview with MTV, following the release of his debut album, The Weeknd spoke of his compilation album Trilogy, as the first chapter of his life and [Kiss Land] as the second chapter. He described his first two releases, saying:

Following the release of his debut album Kiss Land, The Weeknd has been appearing in numerous soundtracks; including the soundtrack to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, contributing "Devil May Cry" and featuring on "Elastic Heart" by Sia, released as the second single from the soundtrack, and the song "Love Me Harder" was released as a duet between The Weeknd and Ariana Grande, and became a commercial success.

On June 26, 2014, The Weeknd announced that he would be headlining the King of the Fall tour, essentially a mini-tour across America in September and October 2014. Schoolboy Q and Jhené Aiko were confirmed as support acts. The announcement came on the day after The Weeknd released his new song "Often" on SoundCloud, leading to speculation the tour will unveil more new material from him. On December 23, 2014, "Earned It" was released as a single from the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades of Grey (2015). The song peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100.

On July 5, 2015, Ed Sheeran revealed on Beats 1 that he had worked with The Weeknd on his forthcoming album. Sheeran also said that Kanye West would feature in this collaboration on the album. On July 9, 2015, The Weeknd announced that his second studio album would be titled Beauty Behind the Madness and shared the album artwork on Twitter.

Singles

The first single, "Often" was released on July 31, 2014. The song peaked at number 59 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number 69 on the Canadian Hot 100.

The album's second single, "The Hills" was released on May 27, 2015. The song entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 20 for the chart dated on June 13, 2015; it was the week's highest debut. Its debut was overwhelmingly powered by first-week digital download sales of 109,000 copies and 5.2 million domestic streams, aided by the simultaneous premiere of its music video on the single's release date. On the following week, the single declined by one position but earned the largest gain in streams on the chart. As of January 2016, "The Hills" has sold 2,662,000 copies in the US.

The album's lead single, "Can't Feel My Face" was released on June 8, 2015, following the performance of the song by The Weeknd at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on the same day. The song debuted at number 24 on the Billboard Hot 100. It produced first-week digital sales of 93,000 units and garnered additionally 4.2 million US streams and 38 million airplay audiences. In its third week on the chart, the song reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100, making it his third top 10 hit, and his second solo top 10 hit. Five weeks later, it reached the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100, which became The Weeknd's first number one hit on the chart; it returned to the top twice, becoming the sixth song in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 to do so, the first since 2011. It debuted at number 27 in Australia on June 20, before climbing to number two in July. As of March 2016, it has sold 2,413,000 copies in the US.

"In the Night" was released as the album's fourth single on November 17, 2015, in the United States.

"Acquainted" was released as the album's fifth and final single, being sent to urban contemporary stations on November 17, 2015, in the United States. It was also released to rhythmic contemporary on February 16, 2016, and was set to impact contemporary hit radio on April 12, 2016, though its release to those stations did not happen.

Release

On July 4, 2015, The Weeknd headlined FVDED in the Park in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. On July 9, The Weeknd continued to promote the album by headlining summer music festivals, including Lollapalooza in Chicago, the Hard Summer Music Festival in Pomona, California, the Summer Set Music and Camping Festival in Somerset, Wisconsin, Philadelphia's Made in America Festival, Austin City Limits in Austin, and Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival.

This followed the leak of three songs from the album in May 2015: "In the Night", "Can't Feel My Face", and a working version of "Acquainted" referred to as "Girls Born in the 90s" that was heavily reworked before release.

Critical reception

Beauty Behind the Madness received generally positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 74, based on 26 reviews. Sheldon Pearce of The A.V. Club said, "It expertly and carefully closes the gap between The Weeknd's perception and his reality." Greg Kot of Chicago Tribune said, "He's aiming for harder truths, creating pop that also works as a commentary on choice and consequence." Mackenzie Herd of Exclaim! said, "Beauty Behind the Madness proves that the Weeknd can thrive in the mainstream, and while the lyrics aren't overtly profound, he's proven that he is more versatile than previously thought, which is perhaps of greater importance at this stage in his career."

Kyle Anderson of Entertainment Weekly said, "Anyone looking for a collection of homages to the King of Pop will be disappointed. Those masterpieces ["Can't Feel My Face" and "In The Night"] are outliers, and they end up making Madness' missteps all the more jarring.... In the middle of those two poles lies a series of bass-heavy throb-and-moan blasts with the signature oddness (shape-shifting melodies, twitchy percussion) that makes the Weeknd a compelling artist." April Clare Welsh of NME said, "He may have softened his edge, upped the production and pulled in the stars, but The Weeknd remains an outsider." Andrew Ryce of Pitchfork said, "In the end, enjoying the Weeknd requires a certain suspension of disbelief, and that remains true on Beauty Behind the Madness. You really have to buy into his bad-guy persona.... For newcomers, there's a whole world to explore, and on Beauty Behind the Madness it's richer and smarter than ever." Jon Dolan of Rolling Stone said, "If the sound has widened and even brightened in spots, the Weeknd still rocks a serious Eeyore vibe for much of Beauty Behind the Madness." Harley Brown of Spin said, "Beauty Behind the Madness is front-loaded with fresh directions for the Weeknd that achieve the impossible: make it sound like he's actually enjoying himself."

Andy Kellman of AllMusic said, "The commercial strides are obvious. The creative advancements are less apparent, obstructed by some unappealing measures, but they're in there." Helen Brown of The Daily Telegraph said, ""Real Life" builds up to a pitch of doomed drama from a corrosive slash of guitar as Tesfaye confides that even his "Mama called me destructive". But Ed Sheeran fails to rescue him on the tedious "Dark Times" and Lana Del Rey—who ought to be his perfect partner in pop-noir—adds nothing but a bored spritz of vocal perfume to the lethargic "Prisoner"." Andy Gill of The Independent said, "Beauty Behind the Madness leaves one feeling just as estranged from Abel Tesfaye's depraved character as previous releases boasting less adhesive tunes." Kitty Empire of The Observer said, "The Weeknd's most conventional songs thus far are Sheeran's boringly retro "Dark Times", and "Shameless", a guitar ballad unredeemable even by its deranged guitar solo. Elsewhere, the step up is more convincing, if not always easy to listen to."

Accolades

Year-end lists

Awards

Commercial performance

On August 31, 2015, Billboard estimated that Beauty Behind the Madness would sell approximately 300,000 copies during the first week of its release in the United States. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 412,000 album-equivalent units; it sold 326,000 copies in its first week, with the remainder of its unit total reflecting its streaming activity and track sales. Its number one debut gave The Weeknd his first number one album. It remained atop the chart for the next two weeks and was the first album to spend three weeks at number one consecutively since Taylor Swift's 1989. The album also remained in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 for a total of 21 consecutive weeks so far. As of October 2016, it has sold 1,130,000 copies in the United States. According to International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, Beauty Behind the Madness was the tenth best-selling album of 2015 worldwide. As of December 2016, the album has sold over 3.6 million units worldwide.

Track listing

Notes

Sample credits