Timbaland compares The Weeknd’s ‘Dawn FM’ album to Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’
The Weeknd dropped his latest album, 'Dawn FM', Jan. 7.
Timbaland enjoyed The Weeknd’s latest album, Dawn FM, so much that he says it reminds him of Michael Jackson‘s biggest album.
The four-time Grammy Award-winner posted a video on social media Sunday to give his co-sign of Dawn FM, which The Weeknd released Friday. With the album’s second single, “Sacrifice,” playing in the background, Timbaland expressed how he felt about the music.
“Yo. This album’s different, yo,” Timbaland said in his video post. “This s— right here, this on some ‘Thriller’ s—-. Trust me when I tell you. And the way he dropped this shit, yo… congrats. This shit is amazing.”
Although Timbaland has an extensive connection to Jackson’s music, having produced a majority of his 2014 posthumous album, Xscape — many have criticized Timbaland’s hot take on social media.
Nine-time Grammy winning songwriter Bryan-Michael Cox took to Twitter to express his thoughts:
Timbaland also got into hot water on social media for a post he made involving Quincy Jones. He shared a meme suggesting that Jones’ accomplishments were of minimal consequence until Thriller:
Given that Jones was a decorated, legendary producer/composer/arranger/trumpet player for the likes of acts like Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, The Brothers Johnson and countless others before working with Jackson, many felt that Timbaland was misguided with the post.
Despite the public backlash towards Timabaland for his posts, The Weeknd might have actually been aiming for Jackson’s sound with Dawn FM.
During the albun recording process last year, The Weeknd posted photos of himself inside of Westlake Audio studios in California, the same studio where Jackson and Jones recorded Thriller as well as the bookending multi-platinum albums, 1979’s Off The Wall and 1987’s Bad.
The Weeknd even enlisted Jones to record a monologue for the “A Tale from Quincy” interlude on Dawn FM. On the track, Jones spoke about how not having a mother in his life affected how he related to the women in his life romantically.
The Weeknd has been compared to Jackson throughout his career. Early in his career, he recorded a cover of Jackson’s 1988 number one hit, “Dirty Diana” on his 2011 mixtape, Echoes of Silence. In Spike Lee’s 2016 documentary, Michael Jackson’s Journey from Motown to Off the Wall, he spoke of how much Jackson was a “vocal inspiration” to him.
In a recent interview with GQ, The Weeknd talked about the comparisons to Jackson. He stated that while he “invited” the comparisons at first, his thinking shifted to a desire to take the baton from Jackson’s influence in order to inspire the next generation of R&B singers.
“How do I become that for someone else? Because I know James Brown was that for Michael,” he said. “And I’m not trying to say I’m Michael’s successor or whatnot. But I’m excited to be the first Weeknd.”
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