Ten years ago today, The Weeknd shared his mixtape Echoes of Silence, the third full-length project in the now-legendary hat trick from the then-underground Toronto R&B artist. Today, Abel Tesfaye is one of the biggest pop stars in the world, so he can afford the very fancy-looking video for the Echoes of Silence title track, streaming above.
The CGI clip is directed by Kurando Furuya with creative direction from the famed Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama. Perhaps best known on Rap Twitter for designing Tyga's Kyoto album cover, Soryama brings back his signature sexy robots for a chrome-finished sojourn through a post-apocalyptic, Dune-esque landscape. If you were tapped in when "Echoes of Silence" first dropped, it's kind of wild to see the relatively lo-fi piano dirge get such a luxurious treatment.
Each of The Weeknd's first three mixtapes – House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence – were re-released in their original forms on streaming this year. More recently, he's been on a collaborative streak, sharing songs with Aaliyah, FKA twigs, Rosalía, Post Malone, and Swedish House Mafia. "Take My Breath" is his latest solo single.
