In November, Abel Tesfaye, who makes music as the Weeknd, released Starboy. That's six projects in five years, and all of them save one have been well-received. In 2011, the year of his debut, he put out three mixtapes and all would have been career-altering for other artists—especially House of Balloons, which remains his best, most focused release. In five years, he's gone from an anonymous voice at the edge of R&B to a global pop star, one calculated step at a time. He's used musical relationships with Drake, Ariana Grande, and Max Martin to his advantage, moving closer and closer to the center of popular music, with its big budgets and even bigger audiences. That he's done so while maintaining a low profile—no wild sound bites, little courting of splashy paparazzi opportunities—makes it all the more impressive.
Now that we've had some time to digest Starboy, here are his 31 strongest.
31. "Kiss Land"
30. "Earned It"
Album: 50 Shades of Grey soundtrack (2015) and Beauty Behind the Madness (2015)
Producer: Stephan Moccio and Jason Quenneville
Restraint doesn’t seem right for someone who’s made music about running trains, but for the soundtrack to the coy adaptation of E.L. James email novel Fifty Shades of Grey, Abel splashed some water on his face, checked his nostrils in the mirror, and straightened up. “Earned It,” a prim sex waltz, became his first song to crack the top five of the Billboard Hot 100, making it the first giant step on his journey from Tumblr libertine to global pop star. Musically, the song resembles little in his catalog, more adult contemporary than adult adult film. (Stephan Moccio, one of the producers and writers, has worked with Celine Dion, Sarah Brightman, and Josh Groban.) But variety has its charm and place, and the stately instrumental bed brings out something especially epicene in his voice. —Ross Scarano
29. "Wanderlust"
28. "Gone"
27. "Die for You"
Album: Starboy
Producer: Doc McKinney, Cirkut, the Weeknd, Cashmere Cat, Prince 85, Sir Dylan
The Weeknd embraced a new theme on Starboy: love, or something like it, creeps into songs like “True Colors,” “Nothing Without You,” and “Die for You.” The latter cut finds the Toronto singer laying it all out for his significant other over emotive synths, confessing that he “hate[s] it when you cry” and pushing his vocals into the red, mimicking R. Kelly’s delivery on “Feelin on Yo Booty.” He’s certainly come a long way from boasting with lines like “Baby I’m a pro at letting go/I love it when they come and go.” These are new feelings. —Edwin Ortiz
26. "Life of the Party"
25. "True Colors"
Album: Starboy
Producer: Cashmere Cat, Benny Blanco, Jake One, Swish, the Weeknd
Starboy is, without a doubt, the Weeknd’s prettiest album. And “True Colors,” is a delicately constructed, straightforward plea for a lover to become just a little bit more. To say it’s an outlier in the Weeknd’s catalog would be an understatement—this is the rare time that Lothario breaks character to play Romeo—and it comes off as sweet rather than debauched. That it’s convincing after hearing the details of so many late-night coke binges automatically qualifies it as one of the Weeknd’s best. —Brendan Klinkenberg
24. "The Zone" f/ Drake
23. "Often"
Album: Beauty Behind the Madness (2015)
Producer: Ben Billions, the Weeknd, and DaHeala
It made sense for the Weeknd to include "Often," a one-off single turned platinum hit, on Beauty Behind the Madness. Though it technically was not a part of the official rollout—"The Hills" acted as the lead single a year later—"Often" captures his ability to straing total debauchery through sweet melody, which became the hallmark of his second studio album. Also, that sample flip of Nükhet Duru's "Ben Gene Sana Mecburum" is haunting in a "let's get fucked up" kind of way. —Edwin Ortiz
22. “I Feel It Coming”
Album: Starboy
Producer: Daft Punk, Doc McKinney, Cirkut, the Weeknd
Most of the old people you know have gotten into some shit. They’ve screwed someone over, said something nasty, fucked licentiously. But they’re old now, and it’s tougher to imagine that colorful, profane past for these droopy, slow, baby-like people. “I Feel It Coming” is Abel Tesfaye trying on the loafers, high socks, and “nice” collared shirt of an elderly cruise patron to create a song so pleasant and sunny, you forget about the stalactites of coke in runny nostrils and the molly scares. “Tell me what you really like,” he sings, and it doesn’t sound like he’s about to insist that you really like anonymous sex in a cramped bathroom stall followed by a crying jag. This is...nice. There’s nothing uncanny about the filtered vocals from Daft Punk embellishing the chorus—these robots are friends. What’s coming might be an orgasm, or it might be a bright future where we can’t remember past wrongs and old, bad habits. —Ross Scarano
21. "Secrets"
Album: Starboy
Producer: Doc McKinney, Cirkut, the Weeknd, Sir Dylan
With a chorus cribbed from the Romantics' "Talking In Your Sleep," Weeknd could've easily made his "Can't Feel My Face" and furthered his shameless and well-deserved transition into pure pop. Instead, he got weird, and the result is a groovy success that sounds like it came from an entirely different portion of the '80s than the Romantics. Abel's deeper delivery may be off-putting at first, but it doesn't take long for this song to worm its way in. Try your best not to do an interpretive dance when you hear it bang at the function. —Frazier Tharpe
20. Ariana Grande f/ the Weeknd "Love Me Harder"
Album: My Everything (2014)
Producers: Ali Payimi, Peter Svensson, and P. Carlsson
"Last year, I did all the politickin," the Weeknd intones without a trace of emotion on his cotillion moment, Beauty Behind the Madness. If anything is representative of playing the industry game, it's a feature on the single of a Nickelodeon princess turned pop princess. And if there was ever proof that our boy Abel could survive the transition from mysterious to mainstream, "Love Me Harder" was it. And Abel didn't suddenly become PG—more like he turned Ariana Grande from Nick to, say, FX. Just shy of TV-Mature rated HBO fare. The Weeknd isn't just equipped to play the game...he can bend it to his will. —Frazier Tharpe
19. "The Fall"
18. "Starboy"
17. "Lonely Star"
16. "D.D."
15. Drake f/ the Weeknd "Crew Love"
14. "King of the Fall"
Album: N/A
Producer: DaHeala and the Weeknd
There’s nasty, and then there’s exclaiming “all my hoes are trained, I make all of them swallow” like 15 times in a row, which is how the Weeknd’s July 2014 loosie “King of the Fall” concludes. This is one of Abel’s wordiest songs, three verses crammed with ferocious determination and drug talk. Over knocking percussion, Abel comes in singing, “I’m Add’d up, Add’d up/I just ate a plate for breakfast,” and he sounds it, feverishly running through syllables like items on a finals week checklist. There’s little sex in the song, the ending notwithstanding, and that moment more to do with control—which is the song’s true theme. “I make my own luck,” he declares, as cool as a cucumber, or a divinely ordained despot. There is Abel’s sound, and then there’s your sound, which can get fucked and dumped off the Scarborough Bluffs. “King of the Fall” has more swagger and purpose than any other song in Abel’s catalog. Now, we all kneel. —Ross Scarano
13. "Tell Your Friends"
Album: Beauty Behind the Madness (2015)
Producer: Chrisotpher Pope, Kanye West, Omar Riad, the Weeknd, Illangelo, Mike Dean, and Noah Goldstein
“Tell Your Friends” could be the song at the heart of a deranged musical—telling us about the no holds barred lifestyle of the protagonist, exploring his pill- and coke-fueled life while he and his friends have uninhibited sex with models. So, a fitting introduction to the Weeknd. But it’s not that straightforward. On the surface, it’s Abe Tesfaye kneeling at the altar of hedonism—his only religion—exploring his newfound fame but stressing that it’s not fame that made him a nightmare—he's been this guy since he was robbing guys for Jordans to pay for drugs. The song's sound is big—grandiose a bit gaudy and more than sinister—it’ll make you want to spontaneously dance like Audrey Horne in Twin Peaks. But the subtext of the song is that maybe Abel hasn’t quite convinced himself that the models and the drugs is really what he wants. When he repeats “they told me not to fall in love/that shit is pointless” again and again, it feels more like a reminder for him than anything for us. —Kerensa Cadenas
12. "Reminder"
In 2016, the Weeknd became a straight-up pop star, and there's nothing wrong with that. His pop-leaning slappers make you appreciate it even more when he goes back to his darker, House of Balloons roots. We don't see it as often now, but Abel taps into that old, familiar energy on the Starboy standout "Reminder," on which he serves up a fresh message to his peers. As he points out on the hook, R&B in 2016 still runs through him, whether they like it or not. —Zach Frydenlund
11. "Coming Down"
10. "High for This"
9. "Wicked Games"
8. "The Birds Pt. 1"
7. "The Party & The After Party"
6. "What You Need"
5. "Initiation"
4. "Can't Feel My Face"
Album: Beauty Behind the Madness (2015)
Producers: Max Martin and Ali Payimi
The flagship song for Weeknd's takeover, and a year later, still a comforting reassurance that Abel's grand scheme to fit in doesn't mean he's changing fundamentally. Our boy grabbed Max Martin, pop's best radio alchemist, and managed to create a Michael Jackson-lite song your grandparents will enjoy, with lyrics that are about coke. The brand remains intact. With "Can't Feel My Face," Abel proved you can put the Weeknd in the spotlight, but you can't take away his drugs. Subversive pop perseverance at its best. —Frazier Tharpe
3. "The Hills"
Album: Beauty Behind the Madness (2015)
Producer: Million Dollar Mano and Illangelo
It’s fun to imagine the person who bought Beauty Behind the Madness because “Can’t Feel My Face” had a good beat. Imagine the first time they listened to “The Hills.” The dissonant chords of static that open the song. The bass that pushes your stomach low into your hips. The sheer confusion about who would be up using their phone at that hour of the morning. “When I’m fucked up, that’s the real me”: This song is not nice. It’s inconsiderate, shallow, careless, reckless, damaged. The feeling of, “I know I shouldn’t sleep with this person, but here we go,” bottled up into four minutes. In the same year as “Uptown Funk,” “See You Again,” and “Cheerleader” (among others), this song was a No. 1 hit—for weeks. That's fun too. —Ross Scarano