Abel looks grandfatherly on cover of upcoming fifth album, due out on Friday (Jan. 7).
With just days to go before he drops his fifth album, Dawn FM, The Weeknd revealed the aged-up picture on the collection’s cover. In the image, the 31-year-old singer looks decades older, with his signature towering hairdo flecked with grey, matching his eyebrows and salt and pepper beard, as well as some deep furrows around his eyes.
The R&B star born Abel Tesfaye, announced on Monday that the LP will drop on Friday (Jan. 7), gifting fans with a cryptic, minute-long video teaser that opens with what appears to be The Weeknd crashing a car and being carried away by mysterious hooded figures. The older version of the singer from the cover then looks around in confusion as a blue light shoots out of his head. The clip closes with a radio DJ announcing, “You are now listening to 103.5: Dawn FM. You’ve been in the dark for way too long, it’s time to walk into the light and accept your fate with open arms.”
Dawn FM is the follow-up to The Weeknd’s fourth album, After Hours, which debuted atop the Billboard 200 in March 2020. The set featured the record-breaking single “Blinding Lights,” which recently became the top Billboard Hot 100 song of all time, surpassing Chubby Checker‘s “The Twist.”
Billed as “A new sonic universe from the mind of The Weeknd,” Dawn FM will is slated to feature collaborations with Quincy Jones, Tyler, the Creator, Lil Wayne, Oneohtrix Point Never and, improbably, actor Jim Carrey, who praised the project after the teaser dropped. “I listened to Dawn FM with my good friend Abel @theweeknd last night. It was deep and elegant and it danced me around the room. I’m thrilled to play a part in his symphony,” Carrey tweeted. At press time it was unclear what Carrey’s role is on the collection.
Check out the Dawn FM cover image below.