Beauty Behind the Madness is the second studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter the Weeknd. It was released on August 28, 2015, through XO and Republic Records. It features guest appearances from Labrinth, Ed Sheeran and Lana Del Rey. The album was executively produced by the Weeknd, DaHeala and Illangelo, and includes production from Kanye West, Stephan Moccio, Ben Billions, DannyBoyStyles, Max Martin, and Ali Payami, among others.
Five singles were released from Beauty Behind the Madness, including two US Billboard Hot 100 number-ones: "The Hills" and "Can't Feel My Face". The album also includes the Academy Award-nominated track "Earned It", which served as the lead single from the soundtrack to Fifty Shades of Grey. Beauty Behind the Madness received generally positive reviews from critics and debuted at number one in several countries. It marked the Weeknd's first number-one album in the United States, earning 412,000 album-equivalent units in its first week. It was the tenth best-selling album of 2015, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, with 1.5 million copies sold worldwide. At the 58th Annual Grammy Awards in 2016, Beauty Behind the Madness won Best Urban Contemporary Album and was nominated for Album of the Year.
Background and development The Weeknd was recognized for his dark R&B music until 2015, seen in his first three mixtapes, House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence, all released in 2011, and his debut studio album, Kiss Land. Released in 2013, Kiss Land was reviewed positively by critics, and charted at number 2 on the Billboard 200. Despite this, the Weeknd deemed it a commercial underperformance, due to its failure to spawn successful singles and expand his fanbase. In his disappointment, the Weeknd approached Republic Records' head of urban A&R, Wendy Goldstein, for assistance.
Goldstein arranged a meeting between the Weeknd, American singer Ariana Grande and Swedish producer Max Martin, for the song "Love Me Harder", released on September 30, 2014. The Weeknd was unsure of the single's success, until it reached number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming his first top ten single. Realizing he could make pop music in his own way, the Weeknd secured Martin as a producer for his next project, desiring songs like "Love Me Harder". Their first session together begun sometime in the fall of 2014, in Martin's complex. Martin's team initially had pre-written material for the Weeknd, but he rejected all of it, opting to write entirely new material instead. The first song Martin and the Weeknd wrote was "In the Night", and they worked on the song with Ali Payami, Savan Kotecha, and Peter Svensson. While working together, Payami found inspiration in modern disco influenced tracks, which led to the creation of "Can't Feel My Face".
Republic's A&R team also sent the Weeknd to work on the soundtrack to the 2015 film, Fifty Shades of Grey, during its early stages of development. In 2014, with parts of the film changing, its director, Sam Taylor-Johnson, wanted a song sung by a male artist for the end credits. This led to the Weeknd writing the song "Earned It", with Stephan Moccio, Jason "DaHeala" Quenneville, and Ahmad "Belly" Balshe, in October. Moccio would produce two other tracks from Beauty Behind the Madness, "Real Life" and "Angel". According to Moccio, the chords from "Real Life" were taken from the 1954 jazz standard "Misty". Moccio presented "Angel", which had pre-recorded vocals from American singer Maty Noyes, to the Weeknd, who liked the track.
The Weeknd also executive produced the album with Illangelo, who he worked with on his first three mixtapes, and DaHeala. Illangelo attained production credits for 7 of the 14 tracks on the album, producing "Dark Times" and "Prisoner" alone. For the rest of his production, Illangelo applied finishing touches, which required either major or minor effort. British singer Labrinth had already arranged the track "Losers" prior to sending it to Illangelo. "Tell Your Friends" was produced by American rapper Kanye West, with Illangelo's work on the song mainly being add-ons and recording the Weeknd's vocals. "The Hills", recorded at the Weeknd's home studio, was heavily built off of a demo produced by their mutual friend, Emmanuel "Mano" Nickerson.
Composition Beauty Behind the Madness has been described by critics as a noticeable shift from the Weeknd's alternative R&B background to a more mainstream pop-oriented sound; with some of his original elements remaining intact. In addition to its alt-R&B and pop sonics, Beauty Behind the Madness incorporates elements of disco, funk, soul, art rock, blues, and trap. Influences of Michael Jackson's Thriller (1982) and Bad (1987) are also present throughout the album. Lyrical themes include romance, success, loneliness, self-loathing, and independence.
Promotion Tour
On June 26, 2014, the Weeknd announced the King of the Fall Tour, which spanned North America in September and October of that year. Schoolboy Q and Jhené Aiko appeared as supporting acts. The tour was announced the day after the Weeknd uploaded the single "Often" on SoundCloud. On August 20, 2015, he announced The Madness Fall Tour, his first arena tour, in support of the album.
Performances 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.
Singles The first single, "Often", was released on July 31, 2014, after appearing on streaming services the previous month. The song peaked at number 59 and number 69 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and Canadian Hot 100, respectively.
The second single, "The Hills", was released on May 27, 2015. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
The third 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 peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
"In the Night" was serviced to US contemporary hit radio on November 17, 2015, as the album's fourth single. The song peaked at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100.
"Acquainted" was serviced to US urban contemporary radio on November 17, 2015, as the album's fifth and final single. It was also serviced to US rhythmic contemporary on February 16, 2016. The song peaked at number 60 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Critical reception
Beauty Behind the Madness was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 74, based on 26 reviews. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 6.9 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.
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 the 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".
Rankings + Publication List Rank Billboard 25 Best Albums of 2015 Complex Best Albums of 2015 Digital Spy The 25 Best Albums of 2015 Exclaim! Exclaim!s Top 10 Soul and R&B Albums of 2015 Mojo Top 50 Albums of 2015 The New York Times The Best Albums of 2015 (Jon Caramanica) NME NMEs Albums of the Year 2015 Now The Top Toronto Albums of 2015 Pitchfork Best Albums of 2015 (Reader's Poll) Rolling Stone 50 Best Albums of 2015 20 Best R&B Albums of 2015 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2020 Revision)
Industry awards + Year Ceremony Category Result 2015 American Music Awards Favorite Soul/R&B Album GAFFA Awards (Sweden) Best Foreign Album MOBO Awards Best International Album Soul Train Music Awards Best Album of the Year 2016 Grammy Awards Best Urban Contemporary Album Album of the Year Billboard Music Awards Top R&B Album Top Billboard 200 Album ECHO Music Awards Best International Hip-Hop/Urban Album iHeartRadio Music Awards Album of the Year Juno Awards Album of the Year R&B/Soul Recording of the Year NAACP Image Awards Outstanding Album People's Choice Awards Favorite Album Polaris Music Prize Polaris Music Prize 2017 Guinness World Records Most Streamed Album in One Year
Commercial performance