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The Weeknd · S5 E1
Earned It
Fifty Shades of Grey, an Oscar nomination, and Abel's voice on the biggest movie soundtrack of the year
A private screening room, late 2014. Abel Tesfaye watches a rough cut of a film about a billionaire and a blindfold, and before the lights come back up, he is already humming a melody over the closing scene. The film is Fifty Shades of Grey, and the song he writes in the next 48 hours will earn him an Oscar nomination.
The Weeknd, Earned It (2014). The official video co-stars Dakota Johnson and drips with the restrained sensuality of the film it was written for. Abel's falsetto carries the entire track over a production that barely moves, proving that the voice that used to hide behind reverb and darkness could fill a movie screen. This was the first time millions of people heard The Weeknd and had no idea he spent three years as an anonymous internet ghost.
Earned It, The Weeknd (2014)
Produced by Stephan Moccio and DaHeala, "Earned It" is built around a string arrangement that sounds like it belongs in a Bond film, not an R&B single. Abel's vocal sits higher and cleaner than anything on Kiss Land, with the reverb stripped back and the falsetto given room to breathe. Listen for how the drums barely exist: the song floats on strings, piano, and voice alone. It is the least "Weeknd" song Abel had made to that point, and that was exactly the point.
The Fifty Shades Gateway
Fifty Shades of Grey was not a film the critical establishment took seriously. But the audience was enormous: the book trilogy had sold over 150 million copies worldwide, and the film would open to $85 million domestically on Valentine's Day weekend 2015. For Abel, the soundtrack was a side door into a mansion. His voice was suddenly in the ears of an audience that would never have found Kiss Land.
TAP TO REVEAL: Who is the co-writer behind Earned It?
“Film and TV, mainly film, has always been kind of the heartbeat of everything I do artistically.”
— Abel Tesfaye, Interview Magazine, 2015
A New Audience
"Earned It" peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, making it Abel's highest-charting single to date. More importantly, it introduced him to an audience with no context for the mixtapes, no awareness of Kiss Land, and no interest in blog-era R&B. These were Fifty Shades fans, film soundtrack listeners, people who discovered Abel through a movie trailer. The underground's best-kept secret was now a mainstream voice.
Acquainted, The Weeknd
The deep cut on Beauty Behind the Madness that captures the same obsessive desire as "Earned It" but without the film-ready restraint. "Acquainted" builds slowly over synths that shimmer like heat haze, with Abel's vocal growing more desperate as the track progresses. If "Earned It" is the version of Abel that Hollywood wanted, "Acquainted" is what he sounds like when nobody is watching.
Acquainted, The Weeknd (2015)
The lyrics trace a relationship that runs entirely on physical chemistry and mutual destruction. Abel knows exactly how this ends and does not care. Every verse pulls him deeper into something he should walk away from.
What was "Earned It" nominated for at the 88th Academy Awards?
Abel has proven he can write for Hollywood. But the next single will be the opposite of elegant: a grinding, distorted confession called "The Hills" that sounds like a panic attack set to music, and it goes straight to number one.
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