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Posted by: ManicKangaroo 26th January 2021, 10:28 PM

The Weeknd is gearing up to release a hits album.

Though no official announcements have yet been made by the Canadian vocalist, 'The Highlights' is currently available to pre-order on his website and other online stores, with a release date set for February 5, two days ahead of his performance at this year's Super Bowl halftime show on February 7.

It promptly follows up his 2020 album 'After Hours', which he'll support with a rescheduled North America trek this summer, with shows in Europe and UK moved to the autumn.

The Highlights tracklist:
1. Save Your Tears
2. Blinding Lights
3. In Your Eyes
4. Can’t Feel My Face
5. I Feel It Coming Feat. Daft Punk
6. Starboy Feat. Daft Punk
7. Pray For Me Feat. Kendrick Lamar
8. Heartless
9. Often
10. The Hills
11. Call Out My Name
12. Die For You
13. Earned It
14. Love Me Harder (Ariana Grande and The Weeknd)
15. Acquainted
16. Wicked Games
17. The Morning
18. After Hours

Posted by: Among Haus 26th January 2021, 10:32 PM

This is a major smart move with the Superbowl coming a few days later and I love seeing Greatest Hits being released in the streaming era because I was worried they were over and done with~ BUT the (almost) complete lack of The Trilogy representation here is really not the one. I hope there's a deluxe edition that is more reflective of the artist he was before he broke through into the maintstream because without that it feels incomplete

Posted by: TalkAboutWall 26th January 2021, 10:38 PM

Save Your Tears should probably get a streaming boost from this too!

Posted by: ManicKangaroo 26th January 2021, 10:44 PM

At the moment it's CD only. There is no confirmation of a digital release yet.

Posted by: dandy* 26th January 2021, 11:21 PM

I was excited for this, then realised it wasn’t anywhere near complete. I can sort of understand the trilogy era being kept separated but not even a spot for Belong to the World?

Not happy about the lack of False Alarm and Rockin either.

Posted by: No Sleeep 26th January 2021, 11:21 PM

Oh god, this is gonna be in the top 10 for decades. Does this mean streams for Blinding Lights, The Hills, Can't Feel My face etc. will count for this album now?

Posted by: Among Haus 26th January 2021, 11:25 PM

Didn't even notice that missing :/ Justice for the sorely underrated Kiss Land era

The more I look at the tracklist, the less I like it. Give us a Side 2/deluxe please!

Posted by: ManicKangaroo 26th January 2021, 11:47 PM

It's not supposed to be complete, that's why it's called Highlights.

Belong To The World was not a hit, why would that be included? This is to appeal to the masses to tie in with his Superbowl appearance

Posted by: Dexton 27th January 2021, 02:08 AM

Yeah this is almost 100% geared towards the GP who only really know him for his big hits, there’s a few lesser known singles hidden among the hits so people can get acquainted with his less commercial stuff.

Posted by: Bjork 27th January 2021, 07:54 AM

it's just a Super Bowl cash-in, I personally think it's a bad move cos it's gonna damage the sales of his studio albums (thats why nobody releases GH anymore)

Posted by: Liam.k. 27th January 2021, 07:57 AM

The streams of each song count towards both the greatest hits and their respective studio album.

Posted by: Bjork 27th January 2021, 08:10 AM

^yes I know that, thats not what I meant
I meant that it damages physical sales of his studio albums
like for example if you hear Adele for the first time (I know!) she doesn't have a GH so you'd probably end up buying
all her studio albums 19, 21 and 25
but if she had a GH, people would buy the GH and thats it.

Posted by: Liam.k. 27th January 2021, 08:21 AM

I see what you mean but do many people actually buy The Weeknd's albums?

Posted by: Cremey 27th January 2021, 08:21 AM

You can’t call it The Highlights when you miss off the highlight of your career, High For This 💔

Posted by: No Sleeep 27th January 2021, 08:28 AM

Oh god, if Elton, Fleetwod Mac and Queen's greatest hits are clogging the charts I can't imagine what this is gonna do

Posted by: Botchia 27th January 2021, 11:05 AM

It feels weird to see an artist like The Weeknd releasing a greatest hits album in the streaming era. I guess it makes sense as a Super Bowl cash in for him.

Posted by: Jade 27th January 2021, 11:11 AM

Surprised (as he's not the lead) but pleased to see 'Love Me Harder' making the cut *.*

Posted by: Hadji 27th January 2021, 07:30 PM

I’m surprised Party Monster, Rockin', Lost in the Night and Into the Night aren’t on there

Posted by: b 28th January 2021, 12:29 AM

This.

Only 2 songs from Trilogy... CHOICES...

Posted by: vibe 28th January 2021, 07:08 AM

he must want to get out a contract and get a new one signed

Posted by: Scene 28th January 2021, 05:12 PM

This is a potentially smart move by him and his label considering a lot of the older generations who probably aren't familiar with his music will be tuning into the Super Bowl but why oh why has the sublime Secrets been left off. It has widespread appeal across all generations and features on one of his biggest albums.

Let's refresh.

Posted by: soundseekerz 2nd February 2021, 11:46 AM

I take this greatest hits in the same way as I did when P!nk released her one. Its a stop gap while the artist sorts out their next move from here. I bet this greatest hits wouldn't of existed if he was able to tour the last album. I will buy this complilation for the temporal gratification but I will probably just replay his last albums (especially Starboy and The Trilogy) to feel justified. He's got many years and albums to come. I'm not worried either way.

Posted by: soundseekerz 2nd February 2021, 11:51 AM

I totally agree. Secrets is awesome but thats why I'm glad the Starboy album is such a masterpiece. This is a cash in and I don't blame him or his label. Compilation sets helps the artist pick up the casual fans who won't invest in alot of songs they don't know. This also could get them to check out his back catalogue.

Posted by: 365 2nd February 2021, 01:21 PM

I really am not keen on the sequencing on this. I prefer when Greatest try to separate eras out a bit more.

I'd have gone like:

1 Blinding Lights
2 Can't Feel My Face
3 Starboy

and so on..

Posted by: dandy* 2nd February 2021, 01:42 PM

If it's a largely digital focused release with an accompanying CD then I don't really think the track listing makes too much difference. It's essentially just a label curated streaming playlist that people will likely just put on shuffle.

Posted by: cOddEye 2nd February 2021, 06:25 PM

Super pleased to see Wicked Games on there since that was my gateway to The Weeknd

I think Save Your Tears is front and center to be pushed as the de facto title track for the GH since it’s the current single from After Hours. It’s almost like if an artist put out a new song to release a GH after moving on from the previous er, the difference being the current era is still going

Posted by: Bjork 4th February 2021, 12:56 PM

he just announced the reschedule of the album tour by the way.
he also announced Rosalia as a guest performance with him at the Superbowl.

Posted by: Bré 4th February 2021, 08:28 PM

I assume ROSALÍA is just going to be there to perform her part of the 'Blinding Lights' remix but here's hoping she'll be given a slot to perform one of her own songs as well xx

edit: I'm now seeing that he's said there aren't any guests so idk what the source of that was lol

Posted by: dannjohn 5th February 2021, 10:05 AM

his mixtapes / trilogy were certainly a peak for me.

I've liked a few songs since but that collection is just the one for me... so glad he's included 'the morning'.

Posted by: WhoOdyssey 5th February 2021, 10:25 AM

Isn't this going to hang around in the albums chart forever now?

Posted by: ManicKangaroo 5th February 2021, 03:12 PM

The Weeknd has shut down any speculation that his Super Bowl LV Halftime Show will feature surprise guests. “I’ve been reading a lot of rumors... I wouldn’t bet on it,” he told sportscaster Kay Adams in a new interview for the NFL Network. “There wasn’t any room to fit it in the narrative, in the story I was telling in the performance. So yeah. There’s no special guests.”

Posted by: Dobbo. 5th February 2021, 03:14 PM

Na I think it'll fall away quicker than people are expecting.

Posted by: dandy* 5th February 2021, 03:59 PM

I do as well. I'm not yet convinced that it's even going to chart particularly highly this week.

Posted by: Feel_The_Fever 8th February 2021, 07:58 PM

Good start its number 5 in the mids, seeing a current artist release a greatest hits seems so weird but weird in a good way, blinding lights will help this alot with streaming and im assuming they know this will help keep it afloat with streams, should be an album that will sell over a long period in low numbers,

Posted by: WhoOdyssey 17th February 2023, 05:44 PM

Oops!

Posted by: Dobbo. 6th March 2023, 03:41 PM

Hahaha we do like comments that age like sour milk. (Unless people's expectations were 10+ years )

TBF what other "recent" greatest hits albums have ever hang around like this?

Posted by: Brer 6th March 2023, 04:08 PM

Well The Weeknd is fairly unique in having so many simultaneously viral songs! I imagine Arctic Monkeys might have similar success if they dropped a GH around now too?

Little Mix, Eminem, XXXTENTACION and Nicki Minaj have recent-ish GH albums with a basically permanent presence in at least the top 100 too. (The latter two being ones that never sold any significant number of pure sales lol)

Posted by: Jord 25th August 2023, 05:39 PM

The album is back at its peak of #2 this week in the UK (6 weeks now at #2 in total) after his final London show last Friday.

I wonder if this will ever get a week at #1. I think all he needs to do is do some sort of vinyl release on a release where nothing major is out and he’ll take it!

What a run this has had though! (Even if it’s definitely down to streaming)

Posted by: JLJ 9th February 2024, 07:53 AM

So there’s now a deluxe version of this with 18 additional tracks (which include some of the Idol soundtrack hits and tracks from Dawn FM era which came out after the original version of this).

So this should keep in the charts for *even* longer. It would be something if it could sneak a week at #1 but even with the additional streams I think it would take a new physical CD / vinyl to really push it but I imagine this will give it another year of healthy sales.

Posted by: Bjork 9th February 2024, 08:25 AM

healthy sales? sure lol

Posted by: JLJ 9th February 2024, 12:22 PM

Combined sales (although it didn’t actually do too shabby on paid sales either). 39 weeks on the sales chart (which is actually more than Starboy and Dawn FM).

Posted by: GraceAJX 9th February 2024, 12:40 PM

What a joke......

Posted by: Dircadirca 9th February 2024, 04:27 PM

Glad it finally has House of Balloons & High For This on the tracklisting.

Posted by: Brer 9th February 2024, 04:33 PM

Not sure it'll make too much difference to its weekly UK numbers as the original album presumably already included most of his most streamed songs? Will see though I guess! I guess the addition of 'Popular' and 'One Of The Girls' alone could be a bit of a boost (by allowing the next 2 most popular songs to have all of their streams counted rather than being downweighted ofc).

Posted by: Dircadirca 9th February 2024, 06:47 PM

I was curious so I looked into his global numbers for a rough idea, it actually changes the top 12 quite a bit

(Green is the new tracklist, blue is the original, the dashes being the top two crossed out, which on the original version is out of order because of the two versions of "Save Your Tears" and "Die For You" that both outdo "Starboy")

17,792,844 - Daily streams for the new tracklisting
11,498,387 - Daily streams for the old tracklisting

That's a 54% increase for the time being. It'll probably lessen as those two tracks lose traction but on the whole it's a lot more chances for the 'in vogue' Weeknd songs of whatever moment to be on it.

Posted by: Brer 9th February 2024, 06:49 PM

Didn't realise 'Stargirl Interlude' was added as well, that certainly also helps!

Posted by: Hadji 9th February 2024, 07:15 PM

They should’ve included the remix of Die For You as that was what helped it to become a hit