The birds (Part 1) - The Weeknd (Thursday, 2011)

By the year end, it won’t be Watch the Throne that’s going to define this year’s music in the blogosphere. The honour will go to The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye), Drake’s buddy cum R&B’s newest boy-wonder, if the third of his gorgeous trilogy mixtapes lives up to its two predecessors. Thursday is a drugged-out interlude, wherein seduction in-spite-of engulfs everything in a broken-hearted haze before the cycle of self-torture begins anew. To listen to Thursday, you’d think someone really broke Abel. He’s fallen and he’s pounding his way further into hell rather than getting up. “I’m in a life without a home,” he cries on Rolling Stone. But his flow kills, so he’ll keep hurting ‘til it’s all numb (or at least until a proper album is released). Abel is also in the zone, but I’m guessing it’s more of a disaster zone than the killer zone Ye & Jayz go on about.