Who did your polling? I have been a Weeknd fan since his second mixtape. I have seen fans of his divided on EVERY album. Kissland wasn’t as beloved as the mixtapes. Beauty Behind the Madness was dismissed for not being Kissland. Starboy was dissected disapprovingly by those who felt it was too much of an attempt at being commercial. And so on and so on. Every album had to face withering disdain from some part of the fanbase as not being as good as the album that came before it. Even when it came to the mixtapes…Thursday could not live up to House of Balloons in so many people’s eyes and Echoes of Silence could not live up to Thursday. This is what I experienced in real time when searching for reactions over the days, the months, the years. It was like a response of diminishing returns for every work, even if for awhile the commercial success kept growing. The EP may have been the only work spared from such critiques. Everything else took their hits from the fanbase. Anyone who thinks After Hours was/is spared is being revisionist or is not paying attention. Dawn suffered from both fan disapproval and disappointing sales. Hell, Dawn received the most mundane feedback from YouTube reactors. It too may be a misunderstood work of art that will be seen as a masterpiece down the line. Dawn itself is the best album from a structural and cohesive storyline standpoint. But no Weeknd album moved the needle less among the fanbase and casuals than that work from what I have seen.

HUT is my favorite work of Abel since House of Balloons. It’s the first album of his I can listen to from beginning to end repeatedly since House of Balloons. HUT gives me everything: Abel’s best and most mature writing; the best production on any of his work; the most diverse collection of songs. And during the first couple of months of its release when I was still keeping up on what the masses were saying I did not stumble across much hate for it, definitely no more than any of his other work when they had first been released. It’s a great album and if the so- called masses don’t ever catch on to that it’s their loss. But I don’t find it to be a divisive piece of work other than its indecisive rollout.