LISTEN: The Weeknd Releases New Song “Starboy” featuring Daft Punk

Photo Credit: Richard Saethang

The Weeknd has released a new track that shares the title of his forthcoming album Starboy, and features French electronic extraordinaire Daft Punk. The track leaked just hours after exposing the album’s artwork which was produced by Nabil, an L.A.-based photographer and filmmaker who is responsible for creating visuals for artists including Kanye West, Frank Ocean, and Nicki Minaj.

This track is the beautiful offspring of two seemingly incompatible breeds; an immaculately executed combination of the Weeknd’s contemporary R&B sound with lyrics generally characterized by sex and drugs, and Daft Punk’s incessantly surprising electronic sound that can hardly be accurately characterized by any one thing in particular. The track consists of a complicated and upbeat drum track accompanied by a futuristic beat and vocals that range in tone yet maintain a very catchy consonance.

Listen to the track on Spotify below:

According to Apple Music’s Pre-order menu, the full album will be available digitally on November 25th. The artwork alone possesses enough shock value to make one suspect revolutionary things from the album, due to the absence of Abel’s notorious hair-do consisting of seemingly uncontrolled tufts of dreads coined by artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. It may just be Daft Punk’s presence on this title track that makes it particularly peculiar coming from the Weeknd, but if it does in fact typify the overall sound of his forthcoming album then Abel has made a lot more changes than his hairstyle.

Either way, Starboy is already anxiously awaited by Weeknd fiends who haven’t had a fix since the Weeknd’s last album The Beauty Behind the Madness dropped like a bomb in August last year. They shouldn’t be jonesing too terribly for new music from the Weeknd, though; he released a track in collaboration with Jeremih, Chance the Rapper, and Young Thug called “Pass Dat”, as well as a track with Future titled “Low Life” which made it to the #5 spot on the iTunes Charts.

The Weeknd will be headlining brand new music festival coming to Queens, New York this October, called The Meadows Festival. Other artists expected to perform at the event include Kanye West, Chance the Rapper, and Damian Marley.