Weeknd is back to the top

Piya Sinha-Roy -

Canadian hip hop singer The Weeknd climbed back to the top of the weekly US Billboard 200 album chart on Monday, in a quiet week where no new entries cracked into the top 10.

“Starboy,” which was in the No 2 spot last week, sold 69,000 album units including 59 million album streams for the week ending January 5, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan.

The Weeknd is an R&B voice for a younger, debauched generation, forgoing traditional love ballads for intoxicated reflections on the effects of directionless hedonism. The album initially debuted at No 1 after its release in November.

The soundtrack to Disney’s hit animated film “Moana” climbed four spots to No 2 this week with sales of 64,000 album units, while Bruno Mars’ “24K Magic” remained steady at No 3 with 45,000 more album units sold.

The Billboard 200 album chart tallies units from album sales, song sales (10 songs equal one album) and streaming activity (1,500 streams equal one album).

Last week’s chart-topper, US a cappella group Pentatonix’ festive “A Pentatonix Christmas,” dropped to No 41 this week.

On the Digital Songs chart, which measures online song sales, Mars’ upbeat single “24K Magic” climbed from No 7 to No1 with 77,000 copies sold.

British singer Ed Sheeran is likely to make a big impact on the song charts next week after releasing two singles, “Shape of You” and “Castle on the Hill.”

Both tracks made Spotify history over the weekend after breaking the streaming platform’s previous first-day record with a combined 13 million global streams, each tallying more than 6 million streams.

The tracks overtook the previous record holder, One Direction’s “Drag Me Down,” which was streamed 4.8 million times on its first day of release in August 2015.

The Weeknd is the first truly Torontonian star of his generation. He is a Scarborough dude, raised within the Greater Toronto Area’s tight-knit 50,000-strong Ethiopian diaspora. Unlike Aubrey (Drake) Graham, although with his help, Tesfaye didn’t have to leave the city to make it (and, in fact, had never travelled outside Toronto before his fame).

Also unlike Drake, who is of Jewish-Canadian and African-American heritage, Tesfaye’s identity is closer to the majority of racialised Canadians who also bear the imprint of recent immigration.

While Drake’s West Indian and East African slang and cadence is borrowed from his friends and affiliates, the Weeknd has made a direct musical connection with the desolate, mournful madrigals of his Ethiopian countrymen.