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The Weeknd · S4 E4
Pretty
The haunting closing track that fans call the emotional peak of Abel's entire catalogue
It is 2013, and Abel is singing so softly in the studio that Illangelo has to push the microphone gain to its limit. The track they are building will never be a single, never chart, and never stop being the song fans beg him to perform live.
Mazzy Star, Fade Into You (1993). Hope Sandoval barely moves in a video that looks like a memory dissolving in real time. The song itself does the same thing: a two-chord guitar loop, a vocal that floats instead of pushes, and an emotional weight that comes entirely from what is left unsaid. Abel was chasing this same feeling on "Pretty," a song built on absence rather than presence.
Fade Into You, Mazzy Star (1993)
David Roback's guitar part is almost nothing: a few notes, repeated, with just enough reverb to make them feel infinite. Hope Sandoval's vocal sits on top like smoke, never rising above a near-whisper, letting the emotion come through texture rather than volume. Listen for how the song builds without ever actually building: nothing changes, nothing resolves, and that is the whole point. Abel applied the same philosophy to "Pretty," stripping everything away until only the feeling remains.
The Quietest Song on the Record
Most of Kiss Land was built to overwhelm: dense production, cinematic scope, horror-movie atmospherics. "Pretty" does the opposite. The production barely registers: a soft synth pad, a distant beat, and Abel's voice carrying the entire song alone. It is the only moment on the album where he sounds like he is not performing for anyone.
TAP TO REVEAL: Has Abel ever performed "Pretty" live?
The Song That Won't Go Away
"Pretty" was never a single, never promoted, never performed on television. But ask any Weeknd fan which deep cut they would save if the rest disappeared, and "Pretty" keeps coming up. The song proves that Abel's greatest strength was never the darkness or the excess. It was the moments when he let all of that go.
Tears in the Rain, The Weeknd
The actual closing track of Kiss Land, following directly after "Pretty." Where "Pretty" opens a door to vulnerability, "Tears in the Rain" walks through it and never looks back. Abel ends the album alone, driving through rain, singing about mistakes he knows he will make again. The perfect final page of a record that was always a horror movie with no happy ending.
Tears in the Rain, The Weeknd (2013)
Abel closes Kiss Land with a confession: he knows exactly what he is doing wrong, and he is going to do it again. The last lines of the album carry the weight of someone who has seen the whole cycle and accepted it. Follow every word as the album fades out.
Where does "Pretty" sit in the Kiss Land tracklist?
Kiss Land sells 95,000 copies in its first week and lands at number two. But the number Republic Records is staring at is the gap between expectation and reality, and that gap will change everything about what Abel does next.
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