The Weeknd Is The Voice of Burnout

Hurry Up Tomorrow Is The End Of An Era And The Manifesto Of The Overworked

Burnout does not always look like crashing and burning. Sometimes, it looks like success… Until it doesn’t. Take The Weeknd, one of the biggest stars in the music world, who in 2023 announced: «the album I’m working on now is probably my last hurrah as the Weeknd. [...] It’s getting to a place and a time where I’m getting ready to close the Weeknd chapter. I’ll still make music, maybe as Abel, maybe as The Weeknd. But I still want to kill The Weeknd. And I will. Eventually. I’m definitely trying to shed that skin and be reborn.».

Hurry Up Tomorrow came out last Friday and it sounds like a grandiose funeral for his pop-star persona. After over a decade of playing a heightened version of himself in music videos, arenas, and interviews, Abel Tesfaye is reckoning very publicly with an experience many professionals understand all too well: the moment when exhilaration turns into exhaustion.

Burnout isn’t just about working long hours. It’s an erosion of identity, a creeping numbness, a fatigue so deep it becomes inescapable. In Tesfaye’s case, this manifests in his music: lyrics about drowning, losing his voice, and being trapped in a cycle of performance. But you do not have to be a global superstar to relate. Many professionals hit a point where they’ve achieved everything they set out to do, only to realize they feel empty. The long hours, the high stakes, the endless cycle of expectations—eventually, it takes a toll.

And yet, burnout doesn’t always stop the machine. Hurry Up Tomorrow opens with the lyrics «all I have is my legacy» and with clear musical references to Michael Jackson’s Thriller: expectations and ambitions are powerful sources of distraction. An epic 22-track release, this is a grand, cinematic album, full of lush synths and thudding beats, a reminder that even when we are exhausted, we often keep going. We push through, we perform, we meet our deadlines - until something forces us to stop. Tesfaye’s voice literally failed him on stage in 2022, an experience he obsesses over in this album. It is a stark reminder that our bodies often recognize burnout before we do.

We may not have hordes of fans whose «voices will tell me that I should carry on» or may not be «trapped inside a gilded cage», like the Weeknd moans in Baptized In Fear and Reflections Laughing respectively, but there is something universal in the inability to let go of what brought success and recognition in the past.

The second half of the album is where we hear Tesfaye at his most vulnerable and, behind the curtain of fame, we see a reflection of our corporate struggles. Quitting often involves shedding part of our identity, as the singer acknowledges in Drive: «You’ll always be a part of me». In The Abyss is where we find the words to make our decision: «I tried to be something that I'll never be. Why waste another precious hour? Why waste another precious ounce? I'd rather leave somewhat of a legacy [...], So what's the point of staying?». In Without a Warning, words of self-awareness: «I'm stuck in a cycle, just wanna feel life from the morning».

There is life after quitting a project, and comfort in rediscovering oneself: Red Terror ends with an invitation to «Call me by the old, familiar name». The tone of the album suddenly shifts for the last track, Hurry Up Tomorrow, a rare ballad from The Weeknd. But the most telling moment comes when, after the singer declares one more time «I want to change», an interpolation of High for This, the first track from his debut House of Balloons - arguably the song that started it all -, loops back in. Maybe that is the hardest part about burnout: even when we want to stop, the cycle has a way of pulling us back in.

For professionals feeling the same way, The Weeknd’s unraveling offers a cautionary tale. And a question worth asking: if you’re caught in the cycle of overwork, what would it take to step off the treadmill before it breaks you? And more importantly, what would it mean to reclaim your voice before you lose it entirely?