Since The Weeknd is performing at the Super Bowl Halftime show, I thought it’d be nice to post a little guide to his discography for anyone interested in looking to do a deep dive into his work. I would’ve posted this the day of the event, but I assume that some people would probably like to go through it over the weekend.
This shares a direct overview of his released material, talking about his career and the background of the music, the videos, the meanings and all. I’ve written this from a pop perspective, keeping in mind that his history might be fairly new for general pop fans.
I also go into the storyline of the red suit character, if your interested in catching up on that narrative before the Halftime show (which will continue the story), I’ve listed the chronological order below followed by an explanation of that narrative.
I wanna be clear that the interpretations/theories are not conclusive. Abel rarely shares the metaphors or meanings behind his music. This is based on widely based on fan discussion/mutual interpretation. Fans can feel free to expand on anything in the comments.
It is important to know about Abel's backstory to get a certain perspective of where he’s coming from, especially when discussing the songs that deal with substance abuse. These recent articles cover his early years really well and share an up-to-date point of view of his success.
Variety 2020
Billboard 2021 - Also a good source for getting to know his team.
So, an essential TL;DR is this: Abel Tesfaye came from a broken home, he was born to Ethiopian immigrant parents who split up when Tesfaye was less than seven. He then lived with his mother and grandmother, only rarely seeing his father but having a nice impression of him. His drug addiction started as soon as he was a high schooler, he turned to shoplifting to pay for this need of various substances. Soon he dropped out of high school, leaving his home the same weekend, which would later inspire his stage name, The Weeknd. The name is reference/homage to the weekend his life changed.
Quick side note, I didn’t think this post would nearly reach the character limit. So I’ve cut out excess detail and lists of producers (with the exception of After Hours since we’re in that era).
Table of contents

XO.
House of Balloons.
Thursday.
Echoes of Silence.
Trilogy.
Kiss Land.
King of the Fall.
Beauty Behind The Madness.
Starboy.
My Dear Melancholy.
After Hours.

XO.

XO is the record label that The Weeknd and co. created in order to publish the first mixtape (House of Balloons) and the ones that would follow afterwards. XO has a lot of meanings that have to do with what went into the music and what still goes into it. XO is what the fans call themselves, popularly with the phrase XO Till We OD (shortened to XOTWOD); another way of saying “we’re ride or die for The Weeknd and his team.”
While some argue that it could mean anything since there isn’t clear meaning to it, fans continue to associate the abbreviation with ecstasy (X) and oxycontin (O). That definition stems from XOTWOD, fans assume it’s true because of the team’s history of drug usage. While others take it as it’s classical definition “hugs and kisses” because of the consistent lyrical nature of The Weeknd’s songs.
Overtime the definition of XO is simply known as: the fans, the crew, and the label. The Weeknd is more than just one person, he comes with XO. For the sake of clarity in this writeup, I’m going to refer to his crew as XO and the fans as “the fans.”
XO still serves as a record label, the current roster is The Weeknd, Belly, Nav, and Black Atlass. It remains The Weeknd’s record label and was his first label before becoming a subsidiary of Republic Records.
Throughout his career, The Weeknd has worked with Illangelo, a Canadian producer who’s work the fans adore. Carlo “Illangelo” Montagnese was one of main the producers on The Weeknd’s Trilogy, he’s credited on each track. The fan base claims his work to be some of the most notable artistry in The Weeknd’s discography. Their work together continued with Beauty Behind The Madness, Illangelo worked on seven tracks for that album. He then returned for After Hours working on another seven tracks.
DaHeala, another Canadian producer, is another significant factor in The Weeknd’s music. Jason “DaHeala” Quenneville worked as lead producer on Kiss Land. He returned to work on six tracks for The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind The Madness, including the hit Earned It. DaHeala returned as a writer for six of the songs on Starboy. Then DaHeala worked on nine After Hours tracks, and worked as the only producewriter alongside The Weeknd for bonus tracks Missed You and Final Lullaby.

House of Balloons.

Didn't wanna make this NSFW, so here's the super clean edited cover

This is a happy house. We’re happy here. (House of Balloons/Glass Table Girls)

One of the most iconic title tracks of all time. House of Balloons is about a lifestyle of drugs, sex, and partying; all in effort to drown out self-doubt. It comes from a place of wanting to make it big while doing what you can to survive, all while pretending everything’s alright. The mixtape describes various sorts of women, how they’ve had impacted the life of someone who’s already down on his luck.
Fans often refer to House of Balloons as The Weeknd’s best work. The mixtape was the first introduction the world got of XO, and it was one hell of a way to make an impression. It’s personal for the fans and Abel because it’s the only piece of work known to be based on his life. At the end of the day he’s a songwriter, with many of his albums he creates scenarios and world that he likes to explore through the music. But House of Balloons is known to be based entirely on his life. It remains The Weeknd’s most critically acclaimed work.
House of Balloons was crafted through the influences of Hip-Hip/Indie-Rock with the main focus on R&B. Through the genius of Ilangelo, the record was—and is—mesmerizing capturing the essence of a lifestyle that The Weeknd described as “anti-everything.”
House of Balloons assisted The Weeknd in gaining the attention of Republic Records, which would then host The Weeknd’s own label XO. Though hesitant at first, XO decided to partner with Republic after the co-founding brothers Monte and Avery Lipman kept coming back to Toronto solely for The Weeknd.
House of Balloons received three videos, The Knowing, Wicked Games and Twenty Eight. The Knowing was the very first video The Weeknd made, so of course it’d be something other-worldly; it essentially reflects the song itself but in a sci-fi setting. Twenty Eight represents Abel’s life after fame but also his remorse of letting captivating women into his life.
Fun fact— House of Balloons is an actual place in Toronto, it was where him and his crew lived after he dropped out of high school. They’d host parties, call girls, do drugs, and to make it less depressing they’d fill it with balloons.

Thursday.

Valerie on the cover

Welcome to the other side. (Life of the Party)

Thursday consists of the same themes as HoB; sex and drugs. But there’s a twist, he’s in a semi-relationship with this girl Valerie. She’s the only one on his mind, even though they meet only one day of the week, any guesses on what day that could be? Through The Weeknd’s phenomenal voice and the insane production, we’re also presented with this story of a toxic relationship where Valerie used to have the upper hand but she no longer does when she falls for The Weeknd.
While Thursday isn’t entirely about the relationship of The Weeknd and Valerie, it consists of reflections to Abel’s life after the release of House of Balloons. The song Rolling Stone notably has a double meaning, in which Abel asks his fans if they’ll stick with him when he gets mainstream appeal and decides to change his sound.
The track Valerie wasn’t on the original release of Thursday, it added when Trilogy was released. Ending the mixtape with Heaven or Las Vegas meant that The Weeknd’s actions with and without Valerie were a result of his fatherless childhood, making him push anyone away. That meaning behind Thursday doesn’t change when Valerie is added to the track list, it just means that both want the toxic relationship back.
The Zone (feat. Drake) was the first feature The Weeknd had on any of his work, the video for it was released in November of 2012. Rolling Stone had also received a video in October of 2012. Both were directed by The Weeknd and reflect the two different aspects of Thursday. The Zone has Valerie living it up in the House of Balloons. And Rolling Stone has The Weeknd doing a photoshoot for Trilogy, reflective of the song itself.
Fun Fact— the female voice heard in Lonely Star is The Weeknd’s, he pitched his voice to make it sound like a woman’s.

Echoes of Silence.

Diana on the cover

Laisse tomber les filles. Un jour c'est toi qu'on laissera. [Leave the girls alone. One day it’ll be you they will leave.] (Montreal)

Out of a dark introductory into the early life of The Weeknd, Echoes of Silence is the darkest work of his Trilogy. Let’s be honest the story here isn’t entirely ethical at times but makes for one hell of a mixtape.
Similar to Thursday, Echoes of Silence follows a storyline. After accumulating success, The Weeknd gains the attention of various women. There was this one woman (D.D.) who he liked but she initially rejected him (Montreal). The woman came back to him for his fame status and evidently fell in love with him (Outside), but now that he’s got the upper hand he treats him like a groupie (XO/The Host) and lets... bad things happen to her; she’s gotta pass a test before she can get with him. This test is either drugs or his crew (Initiation). He ultimately tells this woman that he’s not exactly longterm-relationship material, perhaps because her love is temporary (Same Old Song), because he’s Next. With the end of Echoes of Silence (originally ending on the title track) the listener is left to wonder why The Weeknd left her if he’d simply want her to stay.
As a side note— Initiation should not be condoned. It remains true that The Weeknd is a songwriter and the progression of time has changed perspectives. But a song that makes such suggestions as Initiation should not be ethically/morally claimed or celebrated.
The mixtape follows The Weeknd’s lifestyle after he’s gained all this success, he’s still the same person but now he’s gotten everything he wanted. Some tracks such as The Fall continue to emphasize his journey into stardom and his acceptance of fame being temporary. With the added Till Dawn (Here Comes The Sun), The Weeknd acknowledges the changes in his life, realizing that the old lifestyle is no longer there for him or his past lovers.
Echoes of Silence is known as an underrated gem of The Weeknd’s discography, it’s well received by fans and critically acclaimed but often brushed under the rug in discussion of his work. A lot of fans and casual listeners play the mixtapes through Trilogy rather than their respective albums. This often leads to people not playing EoS either at all or only the first few tracks, this is predominantly due to the nature of the compilation being nearly three hours long.
Fun fact— D.D. is a cover of Michael Jackson’s iconic Dirty Diana. Fans have named the woman in Echoes of Silence Diana because of this track. Various theories argue that the mixtape itself is based on the Dirty Diana itself with exaggerations of the truth, or whether or not it’s a story The Weeknd crafted based on the song.

Trilogy.

Rolling Stone video doubled as a shoot

You don’t know what’s in store. (High For This.)

Trilogy is a compilation of The Weeknd’s mixtapes, House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence. These three mixtapes were released 3-4 months apart from one another for free digital download in 2011, they gained quite a lot of attention from various industry executives.
Prior to the release of Trilogy, The Weeknd featured on Drake’s Take Care with Crew Love. The song was Abel’s first exposure to a Rap crowd/Rap fans, more people began listening to his music after the release of Take Care. The Weeknd then featured on Wiz Khalifa’s Remember You, which served as the second single off Wiz Khalifa’s O.N.I.F.C. Following those two releases, The Weeknd released Wicked Games as the first single off Trilogy.
Trilogy was formed after The Weeknd came under Republic Records’ management. The compilation album reached a debut/peak position of 4 on the Billboard 200 while reaching number one on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. It’s a well received album with the highlight said to be House of Balloons, which arguably went on to influence various sorts of R&B music of the 2010s.
Videos for Trilogy

Kiss Land.

Iconic

I went from starin' at the same four walls for 21 years. To seein' the whole world in just 12 months. (Kiss Land)

Kiss Land is based on The Weeknd’s tour life. Visiting unfamiliar places gave Abel horror movie vibes. A guy who used to own the city (Toronto) he lived in is now a small fish in the ocean of the entire world. The Weeknd’s first studio album was a great introduction into the sound he would soon get well acquainted with.
While continuing the R&B sound with the essence of Dark Wave, the album explores emptiness and regret throughout the lyrics—or what pop fans could categorize as dark pop—. The Japanese aesthetic used for various videos and the single covers/booklet reflects the themes of feeling overwhelmed by such a loud world that there’s no point in being if you don’t belong.
The album explores the real-world and the women in it as well as regrets regarding past actions, namely letting go of women who could’ve been the one in Adaptation. The Weeknd attempts to find that satisfaction in other women and past lovers, but accidentally falls for a sex worker in Belong To The World. With Wanderlust he accepts and expresses that love in the modern world isn’t entirely possible. While continuing to tour the world he enjoys these new experiences with XO (Live For feat. Drake), as well as the new women in his life (Kiss Land). And when he’s back home, he accepts the loss of the relationship he cherished.
Kiss Land debuted and peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. It was fairly acclaimed but gained a massive cult following. There were four videos for made for the album, the title track, Belong To the World, Live For (feat. Drake), and Pretty. Those four songs received interesting visuals that kept up with their respective themes while Belong To the World/Kiss Land got visuals that matched the aesthetic of the album. To this day fans ask Abel for a part two to the horror-movie-inspired album after he said it’s the only album he would have a sequel for.
Videos for Kiss Land
Fun Fact— The video for Kiss Land on YouTube is an extremely edited version of the actual video shot for the song. The directors cut further explores the erotic-horror themes if the album.

King of the Fall.

King of the Fall 2020 cover (even though I talk about three other songs here)

Driving by the streets we used to walk through like a triumph. (King of the Fall)

These next few song were released between the Kiss Land and Beauty Behind the Madness era. Some fans would classify them as part of the Beauty Behind the Madness era—I’d say the same tbh—but they stand apart on the basis of success and acclaim. It’s a transition between The Weeknd being an underrated R&B musician to being a mainstream artist with massive recognition and appreciation.
The first of these four songs is King of the Fall. A fan favourite and a standout in The Weeknd’s discography. This is one of The Weeknd’s few Rap tracks, it gained a lot of attention within the Rap sphere. It was the way in which XO would announce that they’ve made it, little did they know that this was just the start.
Prior to the release of Beauty Behind the Madness (BBTM), The Weeknd gained mainstream attention. The Weeknd’s exposure to mainstream music was uphill, it wasn’t overnight. The first taste of BBTM came from Often, a song that reflected the themes of sex that Abel was known for. The track was released more than a year before BBTM’s release and had made it onto the trackless unlike King of the Fall. Slowly but surely The Weeknd gained exposure, his main sources of exposure were through a collaboration and a soundtrack.
Most pop fans heard about The Weeknd through his hit collaboration with Ariana Grande, Love Me Harder. The collab was made through Republic when The Weeknd said he wanted more than what he had gotten through Kiss Land. Ariana and Abel had formed a real bond cough The Hills cough, their bond assisted the song in becoming a memorable hit for both artists. Love Me Harder was a top ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
Later that year, The Weeknd was featured on the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack with Earned It, as well as Where You Belong. Earned It became a massive hit peaking at 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and receiving an Oscar nomination for The Weeknd; a massive milestone for XO. Earned It kept up with Abel’s signature lyrics but the production differed heavily from the sort of R&B he was known for.
Videos from that era

Beauty Behind the Madness.

I can hear this image

I'm that ***** with the hair singin' 'bout poppin' pills, fuckin' bitches, livin' life so trill. (Tell Your Friends)

Following the success of Love Me Harder and Earned It, the Beauty Behind the Madness era began with The Hills. This was The Weeknd’s first number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Along with the video, The Hills became an addictive classic. The production and lyrics mirror a mature version of the sound that was originally found on Trilogy. It was truly in keeping with The Weeknd’s character, the only difference was his haircut.
Next came Can’t Feel My Face, a Max Martin production that differed greatly from anything The Weeknd put out in the past. In past songs, Abel had expressed his fear of losing his following if he went mainstream simultaneously asking his fans if they’d stay. He repeats that sentiment in the Can’t Feel My Face video. The sound has changed, the lyrics stay the same but now he’s a pop-star. The song became a hit as it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. With this massive bop previous fans still stayed, The Weeknd becoming a pop singer didn’t at all alter his image or sound; he mastered it.
In The Night and Acquainted were released as singles on the same day, the were the only singles to come after the release of Beauty Behind The Madness. The former received a music video treatment that followed the theme of the song itself while also starring Abel’s girlfriend at the time, Bella Hadid. Acquainted was robbed of a video even though Abel had shown off the fact that a video was in development; the song kept in the tone of The Weeknd’s work prior to BBTM.
Beauty Behind the Madness captures a Hollywood-based reality that The Weeknd came to understand: the dark aspects of your life will continue to follow you wherever you are. Real Life, Losers (feat. Labrinth), Tell Your Friends, Dark Times (feat. Ed Sheeran), and Prisoner (feat. Lana Del Rey) all capture a nihilistic view of a dream achieved.
Most of the videos of Beauty Behind The Madness have a mysterious white man. He’s featured in The Hills, Can’t Feel My Face, and Tell Your Friends. That man represents the devil. Throughout his journey in those videos, (The Hills) Abel runs into the devil after his car crash, (Can’t Feel My Face) he’s at the club then lights him on fire. The significance behind the fire could be selling his soul to the devil, BBTM is about Hollywood and a popular Hollywood myth is that celebrities sell their souls to the devil in exchange for fame. So in the Can’t Feel My Face video, Abel changes his sound to Pop (from R&B) thus leaving his signature sound in order to become famous, everyone starts enjoying his music once he’s sold his soul.
Then we see The Weeknd burying himself in Tell Your Friends, perhaps leaving the old Abel behind after the deal with the devil. However, instead of thanking the devil, Abel takes his revenge and shoots him. But wait, there’s more! The album trailer for BBTM features the devil burning a billboard with The Weeknd’s face on it, revealing Beauty Behind The Madness. HOWEVER, the final cut for the video features the devil being arrested while The Weeknd watches. This is a more realistic form of karma that the devil gets.
Videos for BBTM

Starboy.

Filled with bops

If I could, I'd trade it all, trade it for a halo. And she said that she'll pray for me, I said, "It's too late for me.” (Ordinary Life)

After the massive success of Beauty Behind the Madness, there was a lot of hype around what The Weeknd would do next; evidently he decided to explore Pop. The fandom he had gained wasn’t entirely based in the Pop sphere, his fans consisted of general Rap fans, but Starboy attracted the Pop audience.
Initially, most of his older fans couldn’t get behind Starboy, it differed greatly from the previous sound. It was crazy to think that the guy who made Trilogy managed to make such a Pop-centric album. But this was Abel expressing his versatility.
Since this is where most pop fans found out about Abel’s work and became fans I won’t talk too much about the singles, rather more about the album itself. His work with Daft Punk cemented this album in an efficient mix between Pop and R&B, where Beauty Behind the Madness was more R&B with Pop, Starboy was considered Pop with R&B.
Beyond the genres, Starboy explores two evident themes. One being his life with fame and recognition. The next being his love life in Hollywood, this aspect of the album came from his relationship with Bella Hadid which ended after the release of the album.
The cross became the symbol for that era and appeared in the album’s photoshoot as well as the videos. There was never any conclusive word on the use of the cross but there are various theories about it, something to note is that Abel was raised Christian, it could perhaps be a reflection of his past.
The cross he uses to destroy his accolades (Starboy video) is assisting him rather than something that’s holding him back. Abel’s upbringing was rough but now he’s celebrating it rather than feeling bad for himself. The cross continues to come up in the Party Monster video, this time it’s in the party house he’s making his way through. Then it shows up in the video for Reminder, this time in the form of his merch, the people wearing it are perhaps representative of his fans. Then we see it in the False Alarm video, both Abel and the girl are wearing it; the notable thing being that Abel holds his cross up before dying. Then in the brilliant video for Secrets, after giving up on the girl he’s with he leaves the building to find a giant cross. And finally in the I Feel It Coming video, The Weeknd sports a shiny cross necklace, and Daft Punk find it years and years after Abel froze.
The videos tell us that the cross is an evident piece of his story. This could mean that his past will always be with him, no matter what sort of fame he’s experiencing he’ll always be who he once was.
Also, I’m gonna take this moment to once again the genius that is the Secrets (both the song and the video). Yes it’s my favourite song/video off of Starboy but it’s so underrated.
Videos for Starboy, Secrets video bottom right
Fun Fact— Most demos of the tracks on Starboy weren’t as pop as they became, they started off R&B but became pop after production.

My Dear Melancholy.

Note the comma

They said our love is just a game, I don't care what they say. But I'ma drink the pain away, I'll be back to my old ways. (Privilege)

Oof (but in a good way, this whole thing is a bop). For this one I’m gonna talk extensively about The Weeknd’s relationships, which personally feels really invasive but it’s but it’s essential when talking about these sad boy anthems. Beyond that I’d just like to state that though they are part of the narrative both Bella Hadid and Selena Gomez deserve respect/privacy.
So when it comes to Pop music fans I think it’s safe to say that we all know a lot about this one. My Dear Melancholy (MDM) came after the very public relationship of The Weeknd and Selena Gomez. However it’s not just about Selena, some songs reflect his relationship with Bella Hadid (whom he got back with a month after MDM’s release).
My Dear Melancholy consists with The Weeknd’s exploration/mastery of merging Pop and R&B together. The EP was praised by fans for its lyrics and production, many went on to theorize that it was his most personal project since House of Balloons. The EP was the shortest album to reach number one on the Billboard 200.
My Dear Melancholy and fan conspiracies; name a better duo. The first theory being that the EP is entirely about Selena Gomez which wasn’t too much of a mystery since the lyric “I almost cut a piece of myself for your life” exists. Not only did MDM come after Abel’s relationship with Selena Gomez but also after his relationship with Bella Hadid. As far as fans were aware those two relationships were the most important relationships Abel had ever been in.
In theory, the songs about Bella and Selena can be categorized. Call Out My Name, Try Me, and Privilege are likely about Selena. Wasted Times, and Hurt You are likely about Bella. Leaving I Was Never There to act as an introspective look into The Weeknd’s life, basically making him hop back on his vices for comfort.
Another popular theory was that My Dear Melancholy was the first of another trilogy. This rumour was widely believed due to the comma at the end of the title on the album cover. But the fans soon gained a real reason to believe this theory, since the CEO of XO (the record label), Sal had liked an Instagram post that featured the cover and alleged date. Since Trilogy is a fan favourite this conspiracy spread like wild fire, so much so that fake titles and covers were made. The name of this trilogy would be: (1)My Dear Melancholy, (2)We’re Alone Together, (3)Abel.
Only one song served as a single for the EP. Call Out My Name was released nearly two months prior to the actual release of the album, it debuted/peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100. The mysterious video captures The Weeknd in various atmospheric places that reflect the tone of the EP, a haunting yet unexplained reality that the listener is to reflect on.
From the cover, to the music, to the video, to lyrics, My Dear Melancholy is an introspective reflection of heartbreak.
Call out my name video

After Hours.

Talented, Brilliant, Incredible, etc.

My darkest hours. (After Hours)

After Hours comes after success but references two lows in The Weeknd’s life. The album welcomes darkness and leads the listener towards a dead-end. The Weeknd’s past two albums (Beauty Behind The Madness and Starboy) ended on hopeful notes, they left the listener with a sense of hope but all hope his lost with After Hours.
Fans compare After Hours to House of Balloons—a rare occurrence considering House of Balloons’ acclaim—arguing that both albums are on the same level. Debate continues on whether or not both albums are on the same caliber. The belief that After Hours stems from reality does a lot to help its side of the argument.
The era began with Mercedes-Benz commercial that featured Blinding Lights, that was our first taste of the everlasting bop. Heartless was premiered on an episode of Memento Mori hours before its release on the 27 of November (2019), Blinding Lights was released two days later. Both videos were as brain melting as promised and the served as the tip of the iceberg.
After Hours was released nine days after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, there was a massive risk in releasing an album that would not have a lot of promotion after it’s release (other than magazine coverage). There was no telling whether or not people would pay attention to the album during the height of the fear surrounding the pandemic, but it was a massive success. After Hours debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with singles Heartless and Blinding Lights topping the Billboard Hot 100.
The album is layered with haunting productions that remains predominantly R&B but dives deep into Pop with some of the tracks. Max Martin produced the massive hit Blinding Lights as well as In Your Eyes, Save Your Tears, Hardest to Love, and Scared to Live which samples Elton John’s Your Song. Other notable producers include Metro Boomin who worked on the hit Heartless as well as Escape from LA, Faith, and Until I Bleed Out. With Kevin Parker on the interlude Repeat After Me.
Beyond the production are the narrative driven lyrics. In theory the album references two significant events in Abel’s life, his second breakup with Bella Hadid and his arrest in Las Vegas. The latter was due to his misbehaviour; in January 2015 he punched a cop in Vegas, lmao. Which means that After Hours is a recollection of The Weeknd’s first few years in LA. He merges the concept of his breakup with the idea of being an upcoming star, feeling free in the city of lights all while diving deep into the meaninglessness of those lights.
While After Hours starts with loneliness and a second chance it leads up to Abel returning to his vices of lust. In Alone Again his loneliness caught up to him and he’s asking for a second chance. He acknowledges his mistakes and situation in Too Late/Hardest to Love, in Scared to Live his ex then returns to him for a second time. He remembers his past ways in Snowchild and the way in which it lead to better days, but where do you go after such highs? In Escape From LA he faces the superficial reality of Hollywood, glad that he got that he got back with his ex, while continuing to question if it’s worth it. But he fucks up the second chance when she pulls up to the studio.
Who is she? Much like the other mysteries surrounding The Weeknd’s music, we may never know. Is it all more of The Weeknd’s songwriting ability or is it driven by reality? Fans found a merge between the two to be more accurate, After Hours is about heartbreak and a return to the vices that held The Weeknd back.
Heartless is when The Weeknd is once again back to his ways, he may have been in a serious relationship but after throwing that away he spirals back to the way he once was. It’s sad but it’s one hell of a song. Speaking of brilliant songs, Faith is when Abel admits that he’s back on his vices, he states that he needs his ex back with him till the end; he’s back to self-loathing.
So when he says he’s blinded by the lights, there’s two meanings to it. The Faith outro tells us that he’s in a car with flashing lights, a cop car (as confirmed by Abel) to be exact. Then Blinding Lights tells us that while he’s watching the bright lights of Vegas pass him by he calls out for the girl that he regrets losing. That is the peak of the After Hours narrative. He’s behaving badly over the loss of the girl he loved and is now at the worst position trying to find her and gain her trust for a third time.
Following Blinding Lights is In Your Eyes, this is where The Weeknd vows not to judge her; he can see right through her but will never do anything to make her upset. Does this mean their back together? Not exactly. Save Your Tears details a sort of moving-on that The Weeknd isn’t ready for but tries to help her move on, blind to his own inability to move on. Does it work? Not really. Repeat After Me (Interlude) shows that he’s still trying to convince himself that he’s unfazed by the loss of a meaningful relationship.
Then you hear a true masterpiece. The title track is a spiral into true regret and an apology for his actions, he admits that his ex girlfriend is the only reason he lives. In a dark lonely city she’s the only one keeping him sane. But his pleas fail, Until I Bleed Out is when The Weeknd no longer wants her in his life so much so that he wants to erase his memory of anything related to her. The bonus tracks then echo the final sentiment.
It’s one sad ass album, ain’t it. But here’s where the Red Suit Character comes in.
Shoutout to the makeup department
The album isn’t the only narrative to follow with After Hours. The videos for the album follow their own sort of narrative. The story follows an unnamed guy that goes by “red suit character” according to The Weeknd.
There’s a lot of confusion and endless theories surrounding this character’s story, after The Weeknd confirmed that it’s about a decent into Hollywood culture it makes more sense… kind of. I’m gonna discuss the storyline without talking about the movies that have influenced it, this way the focus remains on the character.
The order of these videos is Heartless / Blinding Lights / Blinding Lights (Live on Kimmel)* / After Hours short film / In Your Eyes / Until I Bleed Out / Snowchild / Too Late / Live at AMAs* / Save Your Tears
*Though all live performances could count as part of the narrative, these one relate directly with the videos that follow.
He’s is first seen in Vegas with Metro Boomin (Heartless), intoxicated on various substances. He dives deeper into his high until he licks a frog, after that he faces the true effects of this high. He’s frightened by the result and runs far away from Vegas. (Blinding Lights) He’s then found in LA, where he’s dancing in the street, hypnotized by the singer, beat up by guards, and races past all those bright lights in his Benz. Ultimately realizing the shallowness of the Los Angeles fantasy.
(Blinding Lights Live on Kimmel) We then find him performing Blinding Lights live, while he attempts to find more reason in within the madness city; he couldn’t find it on the streets so he goes to the stage. (After Hours short film) Even then there’s no meaning to anything in the city, he mindlessly wanders into the depth of the subway where he’s dragged by the reality of it all and ends up possessed. (In Your Eyes) After being possessed he chases the woman whose boyfriend he just murdered, she runs into a club falls deeper into the After Hours fantasy, in a successful attempt to defend herself she beheads the red suit character and dances all over LA with his head, iconic behaviour.
(Until I Bleed Out) Then in an ethereal dreamscape, red suit character finds himself in a House of Balloons. He’s trying to escape, but the people there keep pulling him in; he’s getting higher while observing Glass Table Girls. He spirals into the antarctic, the other side of the world. From Heatless to this point in his story, his vices lead him back to the lowest point in Abel’s life. Is it Hell, Heaven or Las Vegas? (Snowchild) He relives his career up until the point where his story began. Considering he’s dead, his life basically flashed before his eyes.
(Too Late) LA girls find the red suit character’s head and live their best life. They wanna have sex with him so they find the best boy parts by calling up a stripper who could be the body. The stitch the head up with the body and do what they want. But now he’s brought back to life. (Live at AMAs) He’s had work done… He went in to get his nose fixed and the doctor said “you sure that’s all you want?” The red suit character’s face is healing while he tries to celebrate his life on top of a bridge.
(Save Your Tears) Surrounded by a masked cult he debut’s his new face. Do they like it? Are they impressed? Not instantly, their masks translate no expression so how’s he to know? Is any of this worth it? Nope red suit character continues to die inside. He finds a maskless girl in the crowd, she’s lively unlike the rest; but even then, nothing on the inside nothing on the outside. He wants death again, somehow a second chance with this city is still pointless. He tries to kill himself via the girl and himself but it’s all a facade; theatrics.
His story continues but that’s all we know so far.
The videos make a lot of film references. This post by explain these references very well, as well as past album references here (part one) and here (part two).
After Hours is inspired by a lot of movies, since Abel is in fact a cinephile. The main movies that inspired the aesthetic and storytelling are believed to be Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Casino (1995), Joker (2019), Uncut Gems (2020), and After Hours (1985). The album tells two sad narratives but remains one of The Weeknd’s best works yet. He’s expanded his videography and enhanced the interest of people who casually enjoy his music and of course his fans.
But the era isn’t over, by the time this is posted his Super Bowl Halftime show is yet to happen. And it’ll continue the red suit character’s story.
Videos for After Hours (so far)
Fun Fact—The Heartless video features a reference to Thursday. When he’s trying to run from Vegas, a sign behind him flashes “Heartless / Heaven or Las Vegas.” This could be a reference to Abel running from his past, after all Heartless is about him returning to his vices.

END.

Thank you for reading this, again, I didn’t realize it would end up being this long. But I hope this this served as a nice refresher for any fans who wanted to revisit Abel’s work before the Super Bowl.
And I really hope that anyone interested in getting into his music finds this helpful. Once again, the theories/interpretations mentioned aren’t conclusive, they’re widely based on fan discussion/mutual interpretation.
Due to the character limit I couldn’t add too links to the albums, so here are some artist links.
Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube | The Weeknd’s Shop | Tidal | Genius

How is all the garbage not burying us alive by now? Just think of all the garbage generated by major cities every single day. It's surreal to think how this civilization could even last a week, with so many people disposing of and using so much frigging stuff.

Yes, a lot of the first world off loads its garbage onto the third world and these developing countries, in turn, generate just as much of their own garbage. Garbage that usually ends up in toxic/illegal landfills, into various waterways, or floating out into the ocean only to become a part of the humongous island garbage patches dotted around the globe.
In my case, nothing served as a more startling example of the waste we collectively generate than the local city dump. Occasionally, to get rid of old furniture and other random stuff, we've made trips to such a place as this, which allows you to drop off old junk in a giant dumping ground for a small fee. Even for the modest town I live in, this local dump, which is privately ran and is only one out of a couple for this area, has always had a literal mountain of garbage tens of feet high, by tens of feet long. It's sheltered in a very large half-open warehouse and there's always so much garbage there that it's practically touching the ceiling high above. And yet this is a normal amount of garbage collection for them. One that replicates itself week after week without fail. And they're not even the official dump for the city, which means that massive amount of garbage I've seen constitutes only a fraction of that actually generated by this city. And then, when you try to broaden the picture, every city, large or small, generates its own sizable amount of trash. Think how much trash a place like New York must create on a daily basis. Enough to fill hundreds, if not thousands, of warehouses like the kind I described above. Go bigger and think of the trash generated by entire countries, or entire continents. All the oceans of garbage and waste flowing out from our daily activity. And this happens every single moment, every single week, every single month, every single year. It's truly mind boggling. How we're not somehow buried in it up to our necks by now is astonishing.
I'm reminded of a joke by Bill Burr, when he remarks on the highly accurate, but not often thought about fact, that everything we've ever used is somewhere. Think about your entire life and everything you've ever donated or thrown away. All that stuff is somewhere out there. Crushed beneath a landfill, or floating out in the ocean, or, just maybe, is being used by someone else. It's crazy to think about, isn't it? The history of people's trash. Those both alive and dead have all left their mark in this way.
I can't help, but notice how in every single house, down every single street, and in every obscure little corner of human habitation; people are using things, throwing things away, buying new things, gobbling up electricity to heat their homes in the winter or cool them in the summer, ordering take-out, driving their cars, making plans for international trips which involve air travel, or other things they'd like to do which requires enormous fossil fuel energy. In every major city, at every single moment of the day, people go to stores, they shop, they dine out, they go to the movies, they mingle at nightclubs, they go to amusements parks and take in all the lurid sights they can. And all this happens. Every. Single. Day. Year upon year. I mean, just think of how this already has happened for decades now. From Chicago, to Tokyo, to Melbourne, to Toronto. Every single day. Every single night. How in the hell has it managed to go on for this long? With that much energy and resources being used by so many people, in so many places. By rights, it should have all collapsed within a week, yet it's been chugging along for decades now without stopping. Quite the opposite, it's only grown and grown. It makes me realize just how much there is in nature. How much energy to be exploited, how many animals there are to be slaughtered, how many other resources there are to be extracted. And that, as of now, we've squeezed and consumed every last drop out of it. Resources that could have lasted centuries, if not millennia, assuming they were properly managed, with far less people around to need them in the first place (at least less than a billion). Instead, we've taken all of it and stuffed into every belching furnace we could, simply to keep the infernal engine running. Hotels, restaurants, high price getaway resorts, luxury cruises, casinos, and whatever other bullshit you can think of. All so as to keep the lights on and the music booming in every single city across the world, and doubly so for the major ones. Like I said, it's just staggering to me that it's all lasted this long.
For better or worse, the world is unknown to me. In my case, I've been a hermit for nearly 15 years. I've never partied, or traveled, or done anything at all except sit quietly in my room. A tidy and well kept dungeon of near perpetual darkness, with garbage bags and thick cardboard taped over every window, leaving me lost behind my own wall of near perfect isolation. All I can do is sit with myself, stewing in morbid self-attention or mulling over any number of other equally dreary topics. Too much time spent thinking about all the things I'd rather not think about. One such common thought would be whether or not anything else will ever make itself known to me, or if all that I've come to realize is all there will ever be. Perhaps hedonism is really all there is. Perhaps matters of pleasure, for whatever form that might take for each individual, really are the only point to life. Sometimes I wonder that, if the world is going to die anyway, you might as well get drunk and party like there's no tomorrow and experience as much as you can before it's gone. If this is true, as I sometimes think to myself, then I suppose I've truly failed in my life. I haven't enjoyed myself and I have nothing, even on the most base level, that could warrant my time spent rotting on this planet. No good memories, no traveling anywhere, no having unique experiences. I've been as good as dead from the day I was born. Everything I've seen outside my window or through my computer screen, might as well be like pictures in a book. A faint two dimensional shadow of something that can never be anything more than what it is. Resting in my imagination only, but not even passing as a figment of the real thing. I'm a pale imitation of life. One that wishes I could have at least gotten something out of all this, as bad as it is, despite knowing in my heart that I never will.
ADDITIONAL EDIT BELOW:
Thanks for all the info. I hadn't considered some of what was mentioned here and it's given me more to think about. The world is, indeed, a large place and thus affords a copious amount of room for our trash. I'll admit that I wasn't aware of how efficiently garbage can, sometimes, be disposed of. Then again, in a world where a large amount of the air, food, water, and earth is poisoned, I suppose it doesn't much matter in the end how much or how little garbage it is that we actually generate. Well, like I said, it's still staggering to me how long this has gone on for. Consumerism, starting from 1945 and onwards, has been around for a little over 75 years now and, with it, most of our modern conveniences. That's nothing when compared against the rest of human history, let alone the deep time of the natural world, but I don't know. Like I said, it's dubiously amazing to me that it all even lasted a month. The fact that our current arrangements can last longer than a week at most, is even more dubiously amazing.
As for myself, I've accepted my lot in life. For what little that amounts to, I suppose. Not everyone has a taste for life, or is cut out for actually living as one would ordinarily expect. It's a sad thing, but as long as humans have been around for, there have been people like me who have puttered about in their dreary existences. Those who've just sort of trudged through life carried by their own prior inertia and fear of death. Tens of millions have come and gone who have found themselves in this predicament and, to this day, there are still those condemned to do the same. I'm just another regrettable example of it. It's not fine, but I accept it. I am what I am and, for better or worse, no one should deny who it is they truly are. Even if who they are only brings them pain and puts them apart from nearly every living thing on the planet. That's how it is, but I guess it doesn't stop me from complaining about it, as I've unfortunately done here, so apologies for that.
If there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's.
Also, for what it's worth, I'm actually a pretty healthy individual. I engage in at-home exercises, have an extremely clean diet, and take Vitamin D and pro-biotic supplements. I do the laundry, I keep my room exceptionally clean, and, along with my mother, I keep our home well kept and decent. Believe it or not, but these are all things I've done for many years now. And you know what? I still feel the way it is I feel. Garbage bags over the windows and everything. Last year, as a matter of fact, I did enough work around this house to have kept at least 3 separate contractors busy for weeks, but, at the end of the day, I was still left with what I otherwise was. I operated a jackhammer and single-handedly cleared away tonnes and tonnes of old concrete that had been blighting our property for years, only to then do the back breaking work of disposing of it as well. I painted our entire fence, I painted and re-sanded our old deck, and I cleaned up the basement, the garage and the shed from top to bottom. It's partly thanks to what I did that we have a brand new driveway now, since I got the ball rolling on it and significantly reduced the cost through my efforts. But, in the end, I didn't do these things because I was ever asked to do them, but to silence the madness in my mind and to briefly make an escape from my isolation.
I didn't have to do these things, but I needed to all the same. Anything to make the pain inside my heart/mind stop, if only for a little while. Like modern media before I was stricken with anhedonia, these tasks were essentially a form of escapism for me. An escapism used to briefly evade experiencing my own empty existence. I don't know what's wrong with me, but, whatever it is, it's been with me all my life. Aside from my mother, and occasionally my older brother when he comes to visit, I speak with no one. I have no friends and, frankly, I have no idea how to make them. This is as true for the digital world, as it is for the flesh and blood one. I don't know what to do about whatever it is I am, but, as hard as it's been, I've tried to accept that this might just be who I was always destined to be. Plus, it's been so many years now. So many years of this. You fall down a hole long enough and, sooner or later, you can't imagine any other way to be. Well, again, it'd just been nice to get something out of all this, this whole civilization thing, besides just being a hermit. I guess in the age of COVID, that's what everyone's encouraged to be anyway. It's like Junji Ito's Army of One made manifest. Who'd have ever thought.

FOR EVERYONE NEW TO INVESTING: A COMPREHENSIVE BREAKDOWN OF TRADING AND MANIPULATION STRATEGIES!

Current Conditions of the Market:
Let me be clear: this is not the typical conditions of the market where stocks fluctuate double and triple digit percentages per day. There’s a place for that - the casino. In recent weeks, herds of new traders are pouring into the trading scene hoping to get a piece of the volatile market that has turned the rags to riches, or the other way around. The stock market as a whole, under normal conditions, moves gradually in both directions, guided by trends, innovation, speculation, earnings report, and financial changes. What we are in right now is a hysteria-filled environment that is risky for both veteran traders and novices. Any uninformed, reckless decision can produce different results - by chance. Be wise and do not let chance underlie your success or bankruptcy stories. Please do your research first before investing into anything and whatever you do, do not make the mistake of over-extending yourself with margin (brokerage-provided capital) that you cannot repay should things go south. People have and continue to make this fundamental mistake that will ruin them financially for years. Stock investments should be about long-term growth, stability, and supplemental to your income. Investments should give you access to the opportunity of financial freedom, but should not be your primary source for income. Do not listen to stock gurus and paid-only discord groups - they don’t make money from stocks, they make money from you. Lastly, this atypical market condition is the perfect storm for spontaneous “pump and dumps” where stocks become inflated, and based on fool’s theory or musical chairs (whichever you prefer), the last one that gets out gets burned. Be smart, be patient, do the research.
Basic Stock Jargons & Short/Long Positions:
Long - you’re buying and holding a stock with the intention for it to increase in value.
Short - you’re borrowing shares from a lender (brokerage, investment firm, individual investors), selling it to someone, and hoping to buy it back at a lower price. Your profit is the difference in the sell and buy back price. I’ll provide a real world example because this concept it a bit more complex:

Person A is a share lender. They want to lend the share and get paid a small interest rate as compensation.
Person B asks Person A to lend him that share temporarily. Person B does not pay anything upfront, but he promises to pay Person A in the form of interest over time.
Person B finds a buyer Person C. Person C wants to buy a stock so it can go up. Person C is “long” on this stock. Person B, however, is short on this stock because he wants the value of the stock to go down.
Person C pays Person B $10 for the stock. Now, Person C has spent $10, and Person B has gained $10.
Two hypothetical situation happens now:
- Scenario 1: Stock value increases to $15. Person C is now up $5 and he sells because he’s making nice gains. Person B needs to buy back that share at $15, but he only gained $10 profit initially. Now he needs to fork up $5 to buy back the share, and then return the share back to the lender + any interest accrued. In this scenario, the “short” lost money, the “long” gained money, and the “lender” made interest money.
- Scenario 2: Stock value decreases to $5. Person C is now down $5 and he sells to cut losses. Person B needs to buy back that share at $5, but he already has $10 in profit initially. Now he pays $5 for the share, leaving him still with $5 profit, and returns the share back to the lender + any interested accrued. In this scenario, the “short” made money, the “long” lost money, and the “lender” made interest money.
The above scenarios help to show why “shorts” (typically hedge funds or experienced traders) might want to manipulate the stock price to go down. Hedge funds have an incredible amount of power in the market, which I will explain in a bit, and can often create serious price movements to invoke price action that benefits themselves. Shorts, therefore, have the opposite intention of longs. They want share prices to go down, and in the process, can bankrupt certain companies that rely on the stock market liquidity to stay afloat. In other words, when investors leave a stock because it is dropping in value, the company loses that money that they could have used to pay off debt, grow the business, develop new products, pay for expenses, etc.

Market Manipulation:
Market manipulation is not new to the scene. Investors have long known of the existence of stock market manipulation tactics, and every day, we may observe some levels of manipulation in specific stocks, specific categories or industries of stocks, or the entire market. Market manipulation is defined as any actions performed with the intention of moving a certain stock price in favor of the manipulator. In this case, these are the wealthy “whales” or hedge funds, both of which have enormous capital capable of shifting stock prices at alarming speeds. Keep in mind, not all hedge funds do this and not all hedge funds are “shorts”. Some are “neutral” and act as lenders to make money, some are “growth-based” and invest just like everyday traders with the intention of raising share prices, and others are “short” which are probably perceived to be the sadistic groups of the bunch. Below, I will be discussing how manipulation occurs and on different scales.
Manipulation Tactics on a Spectrum:
Market manipulation can happen in certain stock, sectors, or the entire market. There are probably far more types of manipulative tactics than we know, but I will describe the most basic types and the strategies behind it.
Scenario 1:
Let’s say a hedge fund just opened a short position on stock X. Stock X is rising in value because general investors see it as a potential growth stock. Hedge funds are not too excited about this increased share value, so they can “hedge” or protect themselves, by selling put options. When they sell puts, they are anticipating that the stock will continue to surge, which causes the puts to become worthless at expiration, but on the contrary, they will be collecting the “premium” or money paid upfront by traders that bought the put. At the same time, this hedge fund will slowly “cover”, or buy shares of Stock X, so that the increased value of the shares will offset the short position which is losing money. The manipulation here is by using the sheer amount of capital in hand to bolster the stock, both creating favorable conditions for the puts that they sold and the share that they purchased as cover. If they want to add another level of manipulation to this, they can also purchase call options, which will result in profit if the stock price goes up. In this scenario, hedge funds make money at the expense of put option buyers and other shorts that do not have manipulative power or capital to recreate this same strategy.
Scenario 2:
Let’s say a hedge fund just opened a short position on Stock X. Stock X is rising in value because general investors see it as a potential growth stock. This hedge fund does not want to risk extra capital to cover their short position (by buying shares, selling put options, or buying call options), so they try a different route. Keep in mind that hedge funds are typically heavily invested in many stocks and assets, meaning they have a lot of power in deciding the direction of many stocks that have potential to instill widespread fear across the entire market if it drops. Take for example, if Apple and Google began to hurl downwards, this can create panic in the market where everyday traders might sell their shares at a loss. This in turn might ripple through the market as other investors in other stocks are predicting a downward trajectory across the market since these big name stocks are losing value so rapidly. Conveniently enough, hedge funds own a lot of these big name “FANG” stocks.
If I am a moderately sadistic hedge fund, I can sell off a large holding of shares (in the scale of multi millions or billions) that are in the same sector as Stock X, which would incite fear across the sector, creating panic sell offs. The price will drop sharply across the board, including Stock X, and the short position will produce big profits. Because this hedge fund sold off a large chunk of their shares at a good price, they can now cover their short position (essentially getting rid of it), and then buy up these same stocks that were let go earlier, only this time at a much cheaper price. The hedge fund has now made money not only on the short position, but now they got into the stock at a cheap price in which they can explore other manipulative tactics to bolster the price again. This can be done by encouraging analyst upgrades, publicizing “newly” purchased positions without disclosing the fact that they previously owned it, etc.
Scenario 3:
This one involves technology: algorithm trading (commonly referred to as algo trading). This one is a really intricately designed manipulative tactic that investors really have no way of getting around. Algorithm trading is the process of using high-speed super-computers and a team of traders to constantly monitor market activity and trade when opportunities arise. In this case, the hedge funds do not have to do any direct manipulation of the market, which makes this 100% legal. How this works is by taking advantage of how trading works and the time it takes for a trade to be made. For you general investors, we have mobile apps and web-based trading platforms to trade. When we like a stock, we have to go through the motion of inputting the stock ticker symbol, the amount of shares, the price we are willing to pay, hit submit, and confirm the trade. For hedge funds using algorithm trading, all this is done autonomously, which makes submission of an order several magnitudes quicker. When an order is submitted, it goes through a brokerage (Fidelity, Webull, ETrade, TDA, RH, etc.) and the data is rerouted to a clearing house (intermediate party that verifies and processes the trade). Clearing houses are responsible for making sure your orders are filled, but they take it on a first come first serve basis. So if a stock is moving quickly, hedge funds have a serious edge in getting in cheaper and faster as well as getting out higher and faster.
Algorithm trading is integratable as part of the buying and selling strategies mentioned in the two previous scenarios, which is why they can almost guarantee profit. Algorithm trading also uses a lot of data in their backbone to determine the trades that have a high chance of profitability, and it acts on various factors such as volatility, volume, interest activity, news, etc. In some cases, these algorithms can be set to do some extremely sadistic things. I’ll start by talking about “market orders” vs “limit orders”. Before you make a trade on your brokerage, you will notice an option that says “market order” or “limit order”. Market orders are an agreement that you will purchase the stock or option contract at the best price in the market in the momentary space in time. There is of course a huge risk to that because in that short moment in time, there may not be anyone selling at a good price, and instead, some people might set sell limits at ridiculous prices. For example, some people set a sell limit at $1000 for GME. If you did a market order, and you get really unlucky, you might end up snagging a share for $1000 each, when the actual share value might be $300. However, when you set a “limit order”, you are agreeing to buy a share at a maximum price that you designated.
In the event that a hedge fund siphons a ton of shares of a company, the algorithm can be set to sell these shares at a ridiculous sell limit. Remember, when they buy or sell, it’s processed significantly faster at the clearing houses, so if you’re that one unlucky trader that went for a market order on a stock, you might end up purchasing it at a huge premium set by the hedge funds themselves. Moral of the story: DO NOT PURCHASE AS MARKET ORDER - ALWAYS PURCHASE AT LIMIT ORDER.
I’m am not a financial advisor, so take everything I said as gibberish.

Two-By-Two, Eyes-Of-Blue: Uncovering The Conspiracy And Future Expansions of 2077 - An Analysis of The Conspiracy, Clues, and Theories to the Future

I think we're all aware by now of the conspiracy that's building in the background of 2077. Most of us know about the mysterious Blue Eyes who appears in The Sun ending to the game. He operates as The Stinger of sorts for (that) ending of the game; He and V discuss a job vaguely alluded to through out the ending sequence and then the ending cuts to V in space charging off towards The Crystal Palace. Cue DLC Hook and credits.
But, let's go back here. This is only the tail end of the conspiracy and where it actually intersects with V's story. Blue Eyes (and some connections to him) crop up multiple times through out the game and, when pieced together, start building a larger picture that runs deeper into Night City than the pockets of most corporats.
I've finished my second playthrough of the game and I've been drafting this post as I play and find more clues. I doubt I'll find everything or might completely dismiss some, but I want to be on the front lines of uncovering this mystery, especially if this will be our Gaunter O'Dim for Cyberpunk 2077. I apologize for the length of this post ahead of time, but I need to summarize a bunch of lore and at least 4 major side-quests; "I Fought The Law", "Dream On", "Full Disclosure", and "The Prophet's Song".
Here's a long essay incoming, but I hope you chooms enjoy and I hope you read through to the end because, oh boy, I uncovered some cool shit!
So, who is Blue Eyes? Who are his contacts? What is his role in the ecosystem of this city?
"I FOUGHT THE LAW"
Let's start with where he most appears in the game; Jefferson and Elizabeth Peralez, political family in the running for Night City's first family. Which I kinda have to summarize their questlines, including the first one which Blue Eyes never appears in. But I'd prefer to go in chronological order and not jump around, so stick with me.
Elizabeth first contacts you for the job "I Fought The Law". It's fairly basic, but the quest tells us she convinced her husband to hire V to look into the recent death of Mayor Rhyne. We get a BD of a cyberpsycho attack by Peter Horvath on Mayor Rhyne. Weldon Holt leaves the room before the attack and then the security gate crashes right before Peter walks in with billions of eddies worth of chrome. The attack is unsuccessful and stopped by Detective River Ward, who was only there because Peter went missing internally at the NCPD and he knew where Peter would go.
When investigating Peter Horvath, his previous boss describes him as paranoid that "probably thought Mayor Rhyne talked to him through the TV" and that the world was out to fuck him. She then mentions that someone "finally saw what he was worth" which cues into how Peter was thrown into this attack in the first place; he had a patron who funded his chrome and the attempt on Rhyne's life. Tellingly, River than goes into a little talk about how clues rarely make sense until put into the larger context, much like we're doing right now.
V goes to the club Rhyne died in; The Red Queen's Race. V sneaks through, takes out some Animals, and can investigate what actually happened to Rhyne. If we read the emails on the office terminal, we know that Weldon Holt arranged for Rhyne to be there. He initially mentioned this to Rhyne during the first BD; Rhyne asked Holt directly to arrange his usual room at the club. So, this doesn't inherently look too suspicious on it's own, but Holt knew where Rhyne would be. We also find out via the Animals Boss there that Weldon Holt is the one who hired them to smash up the club and they're currently waiting around for payment. Further, you can go to the room Rhyne died in, find the BD headset, and put it on... which INSTANTLY knocks V out and they need to be rescued by River (who, btw, takes out any Animals on the property you didn't get to! Ty bro!). They surmise that Rhyne was killed by a virus in the headset. Lastly, we find footage of Detective Han (River's partner) covering up the death of Rhyne. They confront Han, V goes off to the Peralezs, and quest ends.
Of note, finding the BD set is a hidden dialogue option with the Peralezes suggesting, yes, that's the correct deduction to make. You don't get that option otherwise. And V never actually comes to any real conclusion to what happened to Rhyne.
So, let's summarize what we know about the death of our Mayor. Peter Horvath was hired by an unknown Patron who spent a ton of money to turn him into a suicide bomb against Rhyne. They have connections internally to the corrupt NCPD which allowed Horvath to get access to Rhyne, both from escaping NCPD custody and for the security to give him access to Rhyne's conference room. That fails so our mastermind instead assassinates Rhyne at his usual sex club, one that we know for sure Holt knew about. Rhyne is assassinated via malware in a BD porno headset, NCPD comes in an Detective Han cleans it up. Later, Holt hires the Animals to take claim to the club and fuck it up.
Holt is looking suspicious AF rn, but we also don't have any direct evidence and V says as much if you accuse him. Personally, I think it's a little too clumsy if it's him. Holt leaves the room just as an assassination attempt goes down, sets up a sex club appointment for the Mayor where he's successfully assassinated, NCPD covers it up... and then he hires a gang to cover it up more? Something doesn't fit here.
My theory is Holt is innocent. He's a scum bag, but not the culprit here. Why would you EVER give your identity to the Animals you hired to cover up an assassination? The big dumb brutes of the underworld? A name they give up with almost no fight? No, I think someone hired them under Holt's name. And I think they hired them because they KNEW the BD Headset was left behind; Han dismissed it entirely as Rhyne dying of a heart attack brought on during sex. They needed that destroyed to cover the final footprints. It's the only piece of evidence that doesn't have Holt or NCPD's name on it and doesn't fit the narrative that both are pushing. If they're covering NCPD or Holt's tracks, why not delete the emails or footage of Han? And if Holt or Han were trying to push this false narrative, why leave the headset right there the first time?
And, while I have no evidence of this assertion, the Animals are only still there because they're waiting for payment to come in... I think our employer never intended to pay them and left them in the path of V, who is likely to shoot them and tie up the loose end for our mysterious entity. Animals destroy the BD set, V shoots the animals, no trace. And, even if he doesn't, Animals will point V to the wrong person.
No, we've got a third party here. But let's continue so we can finally let our lead actor take center stage.
"DREAM ON"
"Dream On" starts when Jefferson calls V and asks them to help in another case. Long and Short; Jefferson woke up in the night and found a man in a mask (or an implant) standing over him. Jefferson shot the man, only for his head to fry and knock him out. Coming to, he's back in bed with no evidence it ever happened. SSI, their private security, insists that there was nothing on the cameras, no evidence, and nothing happened. Elizabeth claims she slept through the whole thing event.
V investigates the apartment, with Elizabeth giving the tour, and finds a lot of evidence. Elizabeth is kinda dismissive at first thinking V won't find much. First small stuff leading into larger reveals. Let's start small and work our way up.
First room Liz takes us to is the campaign room. She talks about running the campaign entirely out of pocket and having to keep most of their supplies at the Penthouse; "It's cheaper that way". You find a picture of their daughter on the wall and Liz explains that she's off at university in Europe while Jefferson is running for office; "It's easier that way" she says. That phrasing again.
EDIT: A redditor in the comments pointed out that the Peralez are being controlled via drugs in their food as part of the tech. They mention they've been eating fast food lately, explaining why Jefferson was lucid enough to catch the agent and shoot him.
V can look at Jefferson's emails (which Liz slightly discourages them, saying there's nothing there) which reveals a bit more about their campaign. There's a video of the iconic commercial and poster of Jefferson pulling out a gun and shooting a bunch of paperwork. In the email, Jefferson HATES this commercial, but his assistant, Lea Patel, insists on it as it will air in television time slots with action-drama series and catch the attention of voters. Further emails have Eric Boucher, Jefferson's Campaign Partner (Manager?), saying Jefferson has been acting unpredictably lately; presumably referencing one of the next emails. Boucher is confused because they fired Lea Patel together, only for her to continue working and sent him a new ad for approval. When emailed, Jefferson is confused about Lea being fired at all and doesn't remember the event ever happening, even telling Boucher to be honest if he has some issue with her. A final email is from SSI Chief of Security, Wallace, discussing Jefferson's intent to hire a merc to look into Rhyne's death ("Dream On") and they suggest Jefferson drop it or have NCPD or themselves look into it. Private Security just... offering to investigate the former mayor's death? Huh... sounds more like they want to squash the issue to me.
We should now talk about the Peralez's campaign. As you explore the apartment, Liz explains that they're running on a corp free campaign; they want to get Night City out of the control of the corps and do so without ever owing any favors to them. She specifically cites "Night Corp, Militech, and Petrochem" as ones they've denied. Militech and Petrochem come up a few times in other quests but Night Corp is relatively obscure. And they choose that corp to be the first one she mentions? Stands out to me. It also isn't lost on me that we're talking about running a campaign out of pocket and refusing corp assistance... while walking on the fancy ass balcony of a penthouse in Charter Hill- North Oak.
Next room, we find Jefferson's office. Elizabeth and Jefferson both graduated with law degrees from Asukaga University in Berkley. V points out it would be extremely expensive for them both, but Elizabeth says that both got full ride scholarships from the Richard Night Foundation, run by Night Corp. To further fucking cement this moment, there's a Richard Night biography shard on the desk. But we'll drop this for now because I want to get to Night Corp a bit later.
The computer on the office desk has some emails on it sent by Elizabeth. One is between her and Judy where she's asking Judy for help on the original "I Fought The Law" quest and Judy is the one who gave her your contact in the first place. Another is from their daughter kinda asserting the same thing earlier; safer for her in Europe so she's not a target on the campaign trail. And here's the interesting one; Boucher emailed Elizabeth asking why Jefferson changed his mind on Lea Patel. Elizabth says Jefferson explained it to her that it "slipped his mind" and "circumstances changed in Lea's favor" and she asks him to drop the whole thing. She's dismissive and gives extremely vague details.
Next room, Bedroom. Elziabeth's gun is on the table. It's the one Jefferson claimed he fired and scanning it tells us that it has been fired recently. We also find the wedding photo of Jefferson and Elizabeth where she fondly talks about having blue roses because she loves them so much... except the photo's roses are red and V says as much. Elizabeth quietly corrects herself that they only had red roses instead and moves on.
In the hall, we find the blood trail and gun shots in the wall; both covered up hastily. Following the trail, we enter a tv room. The Smart Glass isn't working and Elizabeth says it stopped working recently; not like they use it much anyway. Passing a Tech Check lets us try and fix it... only to be quickly blacked out by it so hard Johnny felt it too. V asks Elizabeth about it but she doesn't know what V is talking about despite having been standing right there. We also find a hidden door in the wall. Unlike earlier, Liz is actually confused by the door but demands V try and open it.
Downstairs we have the security room. Liz says that it used to be her place but "Security had to set up somewhere" and that she had to make sacrifices for this campaign; "it wasn't the first nor will it be the last". One computer has a Welcome email from SSI to new recruits. It details that they have access to all areas except Section Zero, which is reserved for Blue or Black agents and that, should the encounter a Blue or Black Agent (SPECIFICALLY "in the night"), do not interact or acknowledge them. The next email from Wallace mentions an accident where there was a "behavioral anomaly" and "ALPHA" injured a Blue Agent (BLUE-66M) who is in critical and the SSI head is requesting access to Sector Zero to give medical aid. SSI gives Wallace the code to Sector Zero and sends a team to aid. SSI knew about the accident and lied. You go to the second computer, unlock it, and can unlock the upstairs door. On that terminal is a bunch of deleted files (presumably the security footage from that night) and emails discussing "normal maintenance procedure" and further informing security that ALPHA (Jefferson) hired a merc (V) and, should security encounter them, do not interact with them.
Small thing I found interesting, a shard called "You Are What You Slot" is found down here too. It details a fictional assassin who kills and then steals the identity of her victims. Small and doesn't mean much on it's own, but the shards are hinting at the story here; one of false identities and manipulation.
Now, let's get to the main event; the secret room. Inside is a control center. Elizabeth is horrified and feels violated. She shouts that she's not letting SSI anywhere near them, only for her head to start hurting and she tells V to do what he needs to do. She leaves him. Inside the control room is a box of bloody medical supplies. The computer discusses "behavioral norms" for ALPHA (Jefferson) and suggests amplifying "neural dampening". It discusses things similar to Wallace's terminal, but from the other side; ALPHA is displaying odd behavior by hiring a merc, the SSI teams avoided meeting the merc, and then the actual accident that occurred injuring BLUE-66M during regular 'maintenance'. The other side of the room also has another data shard, "Rewriting Synaptic Pathways", basically talking about using tech to rewire the brain a bit.
Following some wires from the control room to the roof, we find a signal dish. Johnny (replacing Elizabeth for conversation now that she's gone), joins in that the tech looks prehistoric but functional and that Militech used it in the war; it requires line of sight to transmit data but otherwise can't be intercepted. We can see the tower and go to investigate. V tells Liz the whole deal; V can suggest that the Van near the tower could be SSIs or that it might not be due to unconventional tech. Liz then itterates twice that it's a stressful campaign time for Jefferson and V should talk to her, NOT him. "Sure, whatever" V and the player dismiss.
(I SWEAR WE'RE ALMOST DONE WITH THE SUMMARIZING FOR DREAM ON, I'M SO SORRY.)
We drive after the van, Johnny is suddenly excited for smashing a corpo conspiracy and iterates that citizens do not choose their representatives, instead they're chosen by "key players" who watch the Peralezes for weaknesses or blackmail material. We arrive at the facility patrolled by Maelstrom and the occupants of our van park, get out, and climb ladders to the roof where they get into an AV that is cloaked to be near invisible (as shown in a couple of vids on YouTube and this subreddit).
At the place, Maelstom is explained; "UNKNOWN USER" contacted them while driving the van for protection to take care of V and then destroy the van. Van's data makes it pretty clear; the Peralezs' minds are being manipulated, new neural pathways are being created, and their memories are being created, changed, or erased. There are also a couple of other names of other test subjects. The data is then erased. We do see an almost flower like symbol before the data is destroyed.
The agents on the cloaked AV CAN be killed and do drop a shard, thought it doesn’t have many more details, merely that they’re contacting HQ to arrange extraction and that the Van’s data should be destroyed and echoing the arrangement with Maelstrom mentioned earlier in their shards.
V calls Liz, Liz wants to meet in person instead of over holo and send him to a Japantown Raman shop (same one that used to be Rainbow Cadenza, coincidentally). Odd choice for an upstanding congresswoman. She says her nerves are shot, the ramen shop is a quieter place to meet than the apartment, and she needs a moment to gather herself since she last saw V, with V even asking if something has happened since they last saw each other. Of note, Liz is stress smoking the entire scene, something she hasn't done until now. She then explains, no, it's been over a longer period of time. She's been watching her husband change and act differently for awhile; he stopped reading, his taste changed, and he even insisted he was an only child and never had a bother when Liz asks about visiting the grave. Of note, yes, Antonio Peralez has a Columbarium Vault, which proves Liz is correct on this. She confesses that she herself has been told by others she's been acting strangely. V says she knew what V would find and she asserts that she doesn't know the who, how, or why, but "they're changing us". Jefferson apparently went on in great detail about a trip she swears they never went on, but she doesn't know if the vacation is a fake memory or if she's the one that doesn't remember.
She saw a stranger in their apartment tinkering with a monitor, only for him to be missing when it was reported to SSI and they looked at the feeds. The next day, she got a phone call from a stranger (whom she refers to by "he") saying that she's walking on thin ice and Jefferson could have an accident. They later erased all data that the phone call had happened. Elizabeth claims she's terrified for herself and her husband's safety and doesn't want V to reveal the truth. V points out "they" could be telling her to say that but it doesn't really change how she feels since she just wants Jefferson to be safe. She tells V to tell Jefferson it was SSI spying for Holt. She asserts she wants SSI out of her roof if they're spying on their sleep. She will take responsibility for firing SSI, but wants Jefferson to be safe and out of that fight. She adds a meeting with Jefferson to his calendar at Reconciliation Park. But, ultimately it's V's choice (especially since she has no idea if she'll remember the conversation) and leaves. Johnny jumps and and talks and mentions that there were talks like this back in his day and worrying about the damage a puppet mayor could do.
V heads to Reconciliation Park to meet with Jefferson. Entering, V is called by an Unknown Number which blacks out V's optics. They claim to know who V is, *what* V is, and what V wants. It doesn't matter what V tells Jefferson, but "don't dare cross that line" and "you're playing with fire". Its a garbled male robo voice, so safe to say it's irrelevant to the owner.
Enter Stage Right, our missing lead; Mr. Blue Eyes. He is standing on a balcony watching the place where we meet Jefferson. In the Scanner, he is labeled "Mr. Blue Eyes", has no known affiliation, is wanted for "SC 370", and is wanted for "Classified". His eyes are electronically glowing blue you can even see from several yards away. You cannot injure him as grenades do nothing and you can't aim at him. Of small note, and I don't know if this ACTUALLY means anything, but his hair style asset is referred to as Morgan Blackhand in the files, but could mean nothing if this hair is actually used by other NPCs. MOST LIKELY THIS IS NOTHING UNLESS SOMEONE HAS FURTHER INFO.
(Plot twist: It meant something. But we'll get there.)
V sits with Jefferson and can reveal the truth; "SSI is on the take from an unknown group to control your lives". V can even point out the absurdity of Peralez being as successful of a politician as he is without any corp sponsors. "They want you to be *their* mayor. Molding you like clay". You can tell Jefferson how to proceed and additional details, but it doesn't matter. Later, Jefferson will send a text and delete your number and so will Elizabeth, who will call you out for telling Jeff. In the end credits voicemails, Jefferson has decended into paranoia about some vitamins Liz gave him which he didn't trust so he sent them to the lab, only to then not trust the lab results saying they're fine. Jefferson Peralez is confirmed the new mayor during Late Act 2 and the major difference is his state of mind at the end game; either hiring V to be on his security staff or descending into absolute paranoia over everything in his life.
Lastly, Johnny appears and cryptically talks about back in his day when they'd talk about rogue AIs. Personally... I kinda completely dismiss this? It comes out of nowhere, Johnny cites NOTHING for why he'd bring this up in relation to the case, and I can't fathom a motive. I’d also point out that this isn’t the only time Johnny is outright wrong. In fact, he’s wrong A LOT in the game. For example, he criticizes V for listening to the Netwatch Agent and that he’s bullshitting you. Except, the agent is 100% correct that VDB did spike V as a suicide virus and Johnny is actually wrong. He also claims he doesn’t know what happened with Thompson after Never Fade Away, but this is a lie because Thompson is flying the AV Johnny takes to Arasaka in 2023. The only connection I can find is "Who is controlling Blue-Eyes" which might make Johnny correct, if just not in the way 'Rogue AIs' initially implies.
So, what actually has happened?
The Peralez family has been molded for a very long time into being the perfect political couple. They got scholarships from the Night Foundation for two fancy law degrees, have successful political careers, and Jefferson is running for Mayor on an anti-corp platform, an insanity for Night City. And he's actually successful at it. During a maintenance service at night on the Peralez's apartment, Jefferson woke up and shot an SSI/Unknown agent making repairs. The Control Booth knocked Jefferson out and they pulled the agent out of the apartment into the secret room. SSI put the Peralezes back into bed and hastily cleaned up everything, but the damage was done and Peralez hired V who uncovered mostly everything.
Elizabeth seems to be initially very upset by the discovery, but wants V off the trail when we meet her next. However, she's not in on it as she's equally a victim to the brainwashing/gaslighting and that's for certain. I think she's a pawn who is either too scared or too programmed to break the rules of movement on this chessboard. It's worth noting that, while the unknown entity threatens Jefferson's life and V's well being, they do not make due on either of these threats. I call their bluff. They have put too much work into Jefferson to abandon or kill him.
But, where else have we heard of this gaslighting brainwash process before?
"FULL DISCLOSURE"
Ok, we're on the shorter end so I don't have to actually explain this quest in full. Sandra Dorsett is a netrunner and a very skilled on at that, actually collecting data from Night Corp. She was kidnapped by the savs we rescued her from at the beginning of the game shortly AFTER she stole this data, suggesting Night Corp was behind it. This data is on the shard she asks you to collect during the aforementioned quest. V has full ability to NOT read it, but let's look at it; "Operation Carpe Noctem" ("Seize The Night" in Latin)
Described in it is an experiment on Night Corp's own employees where they are quietly brainwashing them and getting them to do whatever they want. They specifically cite an empathetic and calm employee who they got to fight a co-worker and then jump from a 16th floor window. The shard ends on mentioning that they're ready to install CN-07 on "our actual target".
I think multiple quests discussing brainwashing and gaslighting is too coincidental to be utterly unrelated to each other. I think Night Corp's actual target mentioned here is Peralez.
So, what is Night Corp?
Night Corp is the most mysterious of the corps in Night City. It currently operates to better Night City via philanthropic ventures, fundraising, community support, and city infrastructure. Basically, while Militech and Arasaka and the others operate in the city, Night Corp basically RUNS the actual city. They're also noteworthy for the level of security they have that even the best netrunners can't get much from them and, since they keep to themselves and seemingly just do city infrastructure stuff, no one really super bothers them. It has been run by Miriam Night, wife of late-Richard Night, until recently and we currently don’t actually know who runs NightCorp.
Originally, they were the Night Foundation, but that requires explaining Richard Night... oh boy, Lore Drop. I'll make it quick as possible.
Richard Night is the founder of Night City. He started as a partner of a firm, but his ambitions grew beyond that to founding "Night International" to build his dream; a city that would be so grand it would make all other cities pale by comparison, Coronado City. A capitalist mecha of opportunity, Night City would be run by corporations and have next to no anti-business policies on the books. Arasaka, EMB, and Petrochem were his first backers and he came into claim of land on the central-California coast; Del Coronado Bay and Morro Bay would be the location of his dream city.
(BTW, irl, Morro Bay, California is a real place. Been there, have family there, go there regularly, kinda cool!).
Despite being a capitalist mecca city and run by corps, Richard Night also dreamed it to be "A sprawling metropolis, free of crime, of poverty, of debt. A place where people could live safely, peacefully, without having to worry about the dire situations that were growing around the world at the time".
However, due to the design plans, Night didn't employ local contractors and instead got expensive architects and builders from all over the world. Local builders didn't like that, they had mob connections, bloodshed started. And soon Richard Night was murdered by an unknown assassin, presumably a mob hitman. The city was renamed Night City in his honor and his dream utopia became to embody everything that was destroying the world. Mob took control and corps didn't give a fuck since it didn't hurt them any until they eventually had to take out the mob gangs, but not in any favor to Night’s dream either.
Miriam Night, Richard's Widow, founded the Night Foundation (later Night Corp) to stick to Richard's Ideal dreams of what he wanted the city to be. They invest heavily in ecological research, alt power sources, civic infrastructure, public works, and charities and scholarships for Night City youth. "They've even managed to stay out of the normal corporate power struggles which tend to plague every other corporation, both inside the city and out. Even the shadowy corporate rumors about them, like having underwater bases in the bay or access to orbital satellites, remain unsubstantiated despite extensive investigation."
So, where does this put us now? We have ONE last quest...
"THE PROPHET'S SONG"
Garry The Prophet is our local crazy man. He spouts off insanities to anyone who will listen near Misty's Esoterica in Kabuki. However, some of his ideas aren't quite as much off the mark as one might think. There ain't no technonecromancers from Alpha Centuri (or Spanish Inquisition) nor is Saburo Arasaka an immortal vampire, but he was correct that Saburo wasn't dead and in fact immortal; via Mikoshi and The Relic.
He send you on a quest to investigate a meeting; he says that his ripper mistuned some cyberware in his head and he can hear their communications. You show up to a meeting between corps and Maelstrom. They say some nonsense phrases and transfer a data shard. Reading it ("Destroy After Reading") it seems like nonsense. But does include the line "The cages of men melt as night descends". You can decode it via a Null Cipher; first letter of every line: “Project Oracle Command Execute Plans”.
We don’t know what Project Oracle is. In real life, secret project or operation names actually tend to be chosen at random and are unrelated to the actual project (you can google funny stories about names that ended up awkward to the actual project), so this could mean nothing. But, narratives tend to give meaning to everything. Oracles are mythical in references and could predict the future or see the unseen. Perhaps perfect prediction via behind the scenes manipulations? Not sure we’ll get answers on this one for now.
Going back to Garry, he's been kidnapped. His protoge is screaming he's been kidnapped "Black suits came by - blue eyes and all". Blue Eyes huh? Further, she claims that they threw him into an invisible AV... Huh, like the one we saw back during "Dream On"? "Night's comin... The eternal night"
So, it’s time to jump us to the final step in our Fool’s Journey: The Sun.
“THE SUN”
The Sun ending has V wake up in their new penthouse apartment (with their love interest if they have one). Checking the computer, we see emails from our dear Mr. Blue Eyes. He wants an answer from V as to the job to the Crystal Palace he has planned and that they’re on a tight schedule for “obvious reasons”. We meet with him at the Afterlife and he talks about the job; Casino security is going into maintenance and V mentions giving him the casino client list. V also asks him to “hold up your end of the bargain”. They never discuss eddies or payment. It’s all in such vague terms. “Your end” or “Obvious reasons”. Smaller point but an email from Vik on the space shuttle also tells us that he’s asked around about Blue Eyes and has nothing; either he works with people WAY above Vik’s paygrade or he’s shady as hell… or both.
I think Blue Eyes knows V is dying (the obvious reasons) and I think the unspecified payment is V’s survival. V always says that they want to come back to their love interest so it’s not a mindless suicide run and I don’t think V would risk it all for nothing but eddies; especially not after Reaper (both versions) paint suicide runs as a horrible terrible thing. To then glorify it in another ending… no, the game is smarter than that.
Your love interest doesn’t seem to be too upset about the situation either. Panam and Judy leave V in The Sun due to their lives taking different directions, but it seems mostly amicable and understanding. They even express desire to see V again because they know V needs to do this job. Kerry, who stays with V in The Sun and expresses worry and also a desire to settle down with V, also seems mostly understanding that V needs to go on this quest. I don’t think they’d be so calm and loving and understanding if this were a suicide run. They know more than the player does.
Further, I think Blue Eyes isn’t after the casino aspect of the Crystal Palace at all. While that’s the major commercial aspect of the station as marketed to the citizen world, the station also has embassies from every nation on earth, facilities from all the major corporations, and is pretty much THE place where all the dark corporate espionage goes down. There’s so much more to this location than ‘casino resort’. *EVERY* corp has space stations and hideaways in space because the Crystal Palace offers it’s own legalities and opportunities that are not allowed within Earth’s terms and conditions. If they want to do some research that would be frowned upon elsewhere and get up to some Top Secret shit, it’ll be in outer space. Night City is controlled by corps and has lax laws, but outer space’s are even more so.
I think the cure V wants is not only on the station, I think it’s what Blue Eyes himself is after, but I’ll get there when it’s time to theory craft about the future.
I think it’s worth noting; Blue Eyes IS IN THE TRAILER FOR THE GAME. Yeah, anyone remember that shot on a shuttle with a guy being burned out from the inside? Yeah, he’s there. In the foreground. *Smirking*. The shuttle also seems like they’re in space.
These events leading to the Crystal Palace and the conspiracy with Blue Eyes are blatant DLC Hooks for the future and suggest a post-game DLC. This isn’t the first CDPR has done so either; Blood and Wine takes place after the story of Witcher 3 and is explicitly incompatible with the worst endings of that game. I think, conceivably, other endings where V is still alive could be roped into this adventure; Blue Eyes merely needs to hire them with the same offer of survival. While The Star takes V to Arizona and away from Night City, I think that choice of location is appropriate as, to even get to space for The Crystal Palace, citizens go from LAX to Arizona for a space port to launch them off Earth’s surface. They could have chosen anywhere else to send Panam and V, but they choose Arizona, huh. I do think Reaper, Temperance, and Devil will be locked out of this future, however, as all make any point of Blue Eyes hiring V irrelevant; there’s no V left to hire/save. MAYBE a rejected Devil ending, but I wouldn’t blame them for not continuing that conclusion either as Devil is one of the bad endings.
So, it’s finally time to really compile a lot of this information into where I think this is going in the next comment below

In the UK, is Brosnan's tenure as James Bond not as beloved as elsewhere (Esp in North America) even among those who grew up in the 90s generation?

Why you should not be concerned about the drop in price today during market hours

Album of the Year #24: Run The Jewels - RTJ4

Artist: Run The Jewels
Album: RTJ4
Date Released: June 3rd, 2020
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Artist Background
The duo consisting of Atlanta rapper Killer Mike, and legendary underground produceMC El-P, known together as Run The Jewels, originally came together as a result of Adult Swim executive Jason DeMarco who introduced the two in 2011. After his 2011 album PL3DGE peaked at #115 on the US charts, Killer Mike told Jason that he wanted to make his own AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. Jason informed Mike, “If you want AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted modernized, the only producer I know who comes close to the Bomb Squad-level of production is El-P”. The duo’s chemistry was immediate, as El-P went on to produce all of Killer Mike’s 2012 last solo album R.A.P. Music, and Mike featured on El-P’s final solo album Cancer 4 Cure. Mike and El’s respective albums released within a week of each other in May 2012, and the two embarked on a twenty-city US tour in the following months. After returning from tour, the pair had found a friendship growing between themselves, and made the decision to put other projects on hold and focus on the chemistry that had been sparked. Recording at an upstate NY studio beginning in April 2013, the duo re-appropriated the phrase “Run The Jewels” from the LL Cool J track “Cheesy Rat Blues", and released their self-titled collaborative album, for free via digital download, only a mere 2 months later in June 2013.
36” Chain vs. Pistol & Fist
Run The Jewels discography currently exists in a distinct pairing. With Run The Jewels as their debut, this record set the group's tone as a light-hearted, braggadocious duo with as much confidence in their abilities as swag in their punchlines. Just over a year later, the sequel Run The Jewels 2 took the foundation set from their freshman effort and dialed the insanity up to 11. RTJ2 pushed the boundaries of their aggression and flows to new heights; with incredible energy in their verses, and absolutely impeccable beats, blending El-P’s signature industrial sound with sharp synth arpeggios, chopped Zach De La Rocha vocals, and absolutely bonkers Travis Barker drums.
It was then nearly 3 years before Jamie and Mike followed up their breakout RTJ2, with Run The Jewels 3 being released again ahead of its scheduled release date via free digital download, this time on Christmas Eve 2016. Instead of these two attempting to outdo the pure insanity and in-your-face attitude found in their predecessor, Mike and El decide to evolve themselves as a group. The duo had noticeably pulled back on the swag and dick jokes which made such a splash on RTJ2, instead choosing a more subdued, electronic approach to their beats, as well as a clearly stronger political approach in their lyrics. This change in sound and style is demonstrated in the album cover’s artwork. The first two records featured the distinctive RTJ “Pistol and Fist”, with the fist tightly gripping a chain. The chain, in my opinion, represents the swag and braggadocio that drove the aggressive nature of their first two albums. In RTJ3 the chain is removed, leaving only hands that have transformed from bleeding and bandaged, to a pristine gold.
This brings us to early 2020. It’s been nearly 4 years of living in a post-Trump America, and El-P announces that Run The Jewels fourth record has been completed. Mike and El live-stream the first single “yankee and the brave” on Instagram on March 22nd, 2020. Lyrically and sonically, RTJ4 exists as the successor to Run The Jewels 3, with Mike and El again taking the good from their previous effort and launching it into the creative stratosphere. El-P’s beats are again leaning towards the synthetic, electronic side, this time with the intensity dialed all the way up to 11. From a lyrical perspective, RTJ takes the politically-charged lyrics from their predecessor, and again, up the ante, laying down some of the hardest hitting and politically poignant bars either of these two have ever spit.
Album Review
2020 was a year that none of us will soon forget. An unprecedented global health crisis kept the majority of us inside for months at a time. RTJ4 was announced on May 12th, 2020, with a release date slated for June 5th, 2020. However, with 2020 as the gift that won’t stop giving, the end of May was highlighted by the unjust killing of George Floyd. The phrase heard around the world, “I can’t breathe” instantly became a rally-cry for the oppressed to finally take to the streets to demand systemic police reform, as Floyd’s death was not the first time this phrase was uttered in an unjust police killing. In fact, a 2020 study by the New York Times showed that at least 70 people have died in police custody after using the same phrase over the past decade. As millions of American’s began organizing protests and demonstrations in the wake of Floyd’s death, Run The Jewels made the decision to release their latest chapter two days ahead of the scheduled release. El-P tweeted, just minutes ahead of the drop, “Fuck it, why wait. The world is infested with bullshit, so here’s something raw to listen to while you deal with it all. We hope it brings you some joy. Stay safe and hopeful out there and thank you for giving 2 friends the chance to be heard and do what they love”. In line with all past Run The Jewels releases, the album was made available for free digital download, two days ahead of its scheduled release date, on June 3rd, 2020.
THE RETURN (we don’t mean no harm but we truly mean all the disrespect)
RTJ4 opens with the first single, “yankee and the brave (ep. 4)”. Using the team names from their respective hometown baseball teams, Mike and El use the opening track to prove that they’re not just a hip-hop duo, they’re brothers, for better or worse. El-P kicks this installment off with rapid-fire, machine-gun esque snares, matching Killer Mike’s aggressive flow and tightly packed rhymes, before El jumps in to trade some dense rhymes as well. Mike and El depict themselves as outlaws, with Mike surrounded by cops with only one bullet remaining. He contemplates suicide instead of allowing the police to take him alive, until El-P jumps back in, offering Mike a way out, with a getaway car waiting outside. This tense situation is depicted lightheartedly in this song’s music video, which was released via Adult Swim and features the duo animated.
The trade-off between Mike and El’s short verses are reminiscent of late-80’s EPMD flows, while the production sounds like boom-bap that’s been sent to us from the future. This distinctive blend of old-school rap roots and forward thinking production is what continues to separate Run The Jewels from absolutely all of their contemporaries. While so many artists are continually playing catch-up with the latest trends, RTJ are side-stepping the trendy and moving forward with the mind-bending.
FLEXIN’ (ayo one for mayhem, two for mischief)
The second single “ooh la la” samples a Gang Star track "DWYCK (feat. Nice & Smooth)" as the basis for the chorus. I say “samples” as that’s how it is credited in the album’s liner notes, however it’s truly an interpolation of Greg Nice’s bar, slowed down slightly, and sung by El-P and Greg Nice himself. El-P is a true old-head at heart, and it’s abundantly obvious in his work, even going as far as to recruit legendary producer DJ Premiere to handle the scratching on the back end of this banger.
Out of key piano chords are looped to quickly create an unsettling aura surrounding the track, before El-P’s voice cuts through the infectious piano like a whip. Pounding, up-tempo drums are introduced after the chorus’ first iteration, creating what is possibly El-P’s first danceable beat. Lyrically, Mike and El-P initially seem scattered on this track, however the music video quickly makes their point very obvious.

”we imagined the world on the day that the age old struggle of class was finally over. a day that humanity, empathy and community were victorious over the forces that would separate us based on arbitrary systems created by man.
this video is a fantasy of waking up on a day that there is no monetary system, no dividing line, no false construct to tell our fellow man that they are less or more than anyone else. not that people are without but that the whole meaning of money has vanished. that we have somehow solved our self created caste system and can now start fresh with love, hope and celebration. its a dream of humanity’s V-DAY… and the party we know would pop off.”

The video envisions a society celebrating the fact that the class system we currently exist within has finally imploded. Money is worthless, and we have rejected the desire to bind ourselves to the constraints of capitalism. All creeds and colors unite to burn the system that has so effectively controlled us for over a century. It’s a party, and if there was a song to celebrate the end of the world as it is currently known, “ooh la la” is that song.
Mike’s last verse features a few metaphors and comparisons celebrating the destruction of capitalism, saving the most poignant for last:

I used to love Bruce, but livin' my vida loca
Helped me understand I'm probably more of a Joker
When we usher in chaos, just know that we did it smiling
Cannibals on this island, inmates run the asylum

Premo’s expertly cut scratches lead us into the equally hard hitting sample flip of “Misdemeanor”, by Foster Stevens as the basis for the beat to “out of sight”. Lending yet another nod to the old-school greats that laid the foundation for RTJ, “out of sight” samples the same track as The D.O.C.’s “It’s Funky Enough”, only adding a bouncy, electronic synth atop the inverted chord hits, and uptempo, industrial drums, to create an absolutely infectious groove for Mike and El’s dynamic chemistry to shine, rapidly jumping between each other’s two line flows in the first verse.
“out of sight” shows each MC providing insight into how each of them earned a living and achieved their current status. Mike and El’s opening verse each details themselves robbing people in order to eat. El alludes to the fact that he crossed his accomplices in crime for the whole bag, while Mike details the fact his assailant tells him it’s an “honor” to be robbed by his mother’s only son.
While El-P’s production is the obvious stand out on first listen, Killer Mike comes through with one of the most sonically pleasing and technically proficient verses of 2020.

We the motivating, devastating, captivating
Ghost and Rae relating product of the fuckin' '80s
Coke dealin' babies, never regulating, bag accumulating
It would not be overstating to say they are underrating
The pride of Brooklyn and the Grady, baby
We don't need no compliments or confidence
Our attitude and latitude is "fuck you, pay me"

The dense, intricate rhyme schemes smack you in the face, almost distracting you from Mike’s delivery and blistering flow on the verse; flexing his legendary status while paying homage to his drug-dealing past. This absolutely stunning display of technical skill, story telling, and complex rhyming illustrates how RTJ seamlessly integrates the best of both old school and new school hip-hop.
“out of sight” also features a guest verse from 2 Chainz, and he continues to lay the braggadocio on thick. Considering Tity Boi’s dedication to trap stylings, his verse feels right at home on the flex track, despite it’s late 80’s tribute sample, a considerable departure from his usual sound palette.
Up until this point, I haven’t mentioned any of the El-P’s lyrics specifically. El-P is a great rapper, but Killer Mike… Well, Killer Mike is an incredible rapper. He’s the guy who draws you in. El-P is the one who lays the foundation for greatness and Mike is the show stopper, and that’s generally the case for most RTJ tracks. But on “holy calamafuck”, El-P seems determined to make people stop and ask, “Who the fuck is this?!”.
A sharp, yet nearly minimalistic drum kit backing a heavily distorted synthesizer melody lays beneath rhymically knocking cow-bells. This aggressively set stage allows Mike and El to flex as the dynamic duo they are, until the beat suddenly takes a turn for the chaotic. A gnarled, ultra-menacing synth overtakes everything while Mike screams into the abyss, until a distorted snare, enormous 808s, and skeletal hi-hats cut through and launch the beat switch into another dimension. The minimal, yet incredibly dark soundscape allows El-P to snap in a way I have never heard from him previously. His rhymes schemes are reminiscent of an old MF DOOM lyric notebook, while his topics flawlessly combine flexing, psychedelic use, and his well-cemented legacy in the hip-hop community. Cutting and pasting a few of his bars into this review could not convey a fraction of how stunning El-P’s performance on “holy calamafuck” is.
Slightly later in the track list, making liberal use of the Ether song “Gang of Four”, “the ground below” samples and loops the sharp guitar riff and adds aggressive, pounding drums as the basis for the beat; this is finally reminiscent of the forward-thinking, stridulous production El-P has built his reputation on. Capitalising on the classic RTJ moment, Mike and El both flex in their own unique ways. Mike compares himself to Godzilla taking on Tokyo, and El-P demands respect for his name as the legend he is, threatening to smack dying children for mispronouncing his name with his middle finger to the world; his complete disregard for human life and confidence in his abilities are summed up at the end of his verse.

You see a future where Run the Jewels ain’t the shit
Cancel my Hitler-killing trip
Turn the time machine back around a century

SO¢IAL JU$T-ICE (until my voice go from a shriek to whisper...)
While the first few tracks aren’t without their social and political themes, the back-end of RTJ4 is where Mike and El start to bust out the heavy topics. “goonies vs. E.T.”. starts off light, with El-P pointing to the irony of how once he finally started to make it “big” in the industry, the world began to descend into chaos due to climate changes, increasingly obvious social injustice, and political madness. He culminates his frustration with our disregard for the Earth with a fantastic quotable.

Fuck y’all got, another planet on stash?
Far from the fact of the flames and our trash
That is not snow, it is ash, and you gotta know
The past got a wrath, it’s a lover gone mad

Mike’s verse takes the light-hearted frustration expressed by El-P, and turns the aggression to the next level. Aiming his sights against the ruling class and their society that’s been designed to oppress people for profit, who have very meticulously painted themselves as celebrities and idols to the American public. Mike accepts that he will be villainized by these people for speaking against them, but he welcomes the nefarious role, knowing that the working class will eventually eat the rich, no matter how much they are stomped into the dirt.
And this is just the warmup.
If it’s possible for a song to represent a moment in time that captures the absolute shit storm that has been 2020, “walking in the snow” is that song. It’s release coincided perfectly with the protests for George Floyd which were sweeping the nation. Killer Mike’s verse directly references the phrase “I can’t breathe”, the last words of Eric Garner, which also happened to be the last words of Floyd as well. The fact that this verse was reportedly written in November 2019 perpetually underscores the importance of the content and perfectly represents how persistent this problem is. “walking in the snow” is a true encapsulation of both a defining moment in time and an ever-persisting issue.
But he doesn’t just stop at the racial injustice. Mike goes on an absolute rant about the American education system; how it’s not designed to teach people, but to discriminate against poor populations, limiting their legitimate opportunities, and therefore disproportionately leading them into a criminal lifestyle. He calls out the media as fear-mongers, and the apathy of the American public in the face of indecency. Fortunately for Mike, by the time we finally had the chance to hear this masterpiece, we were already on our feet, using this album as a war cry to mobilize against a tyrannical government that militarized against its own citizens simply for asking that we recognize systemic racism and demanding change. Killer Mike has the best verse of the year, no doubt in my mind.
The only drawback is that Mike’s verse is so fucking good that it completely overshadows El-P’s, which is also amazing. A menacing guitar riff and haunting synths kick the track off into a bouncy groove, where El-P unleashes a flurry of internal rhymes that does not relent for about half his verse. Even adding layers of social commentary within the densely packed bars, El refuses to quit and continues on his political tirade; criticizing ICE’s detainment center practices and the “pseudo-Christians” who support them, with a bar that now lives in my head:

Pseudo-Christians, y’all indifferent, kids in prison ain’t a sin? Shit
if even one scrap of what Jesus taught connected you’d feel different
what a disingenuous way to piss away existence, I don’t get it
I’d say you lost your goddamn minds if y’all possessed one to begin with

The combination of two of the best verses spit by any rapper(s) this year and production help from El-P and long time RTJ collaborator Little Shalimar, create a bouncy, aggressive, deeply truthful banger. “walking in the snow” not only encapsulates the crux of 2020 with lyrics that will become more powerful as they age, but will also forever be associated with the Black Lives Matter movement and the determination to expose continuing racial and societal injustices.
The sonic palette of RTJ4 holds an extremely unique place in El-P’s discography. Jamie is the definition of a self-made 90’s hip-hop legend. This is the dude who put New York underground hip-hop on the map with Company Flow, and he did it with his unique flavor of dark, noisy, dense, boom-bap. Whether he was doing it with the help of Rawkus, or completely independently during his Definitive Jux run, El-P has never made music with the intention of becoming famous. Funcrusher Plus, Fantastic Damage,I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, and Cancer 4 Cure are all highly revered as industrial, technical, abrasive, and completely unsuitable for the radio or a party. The fact that three songs on RTJ4 could easily be heard on the radio, at a party, or in a TV series credits scene is frankly, astounding. In a 2002 interview/documentary on El-P’s budding record label Def Jux, he stated that his friend bet him $500 that he could not make a beat that was “happy”. At the time of the interview, El-P said that he had not won that bet yet. While I might not qualify the beats on RTJ4 as “happy”, if you showed El-P the beat for “JU$T” in 2002, I believe he might have won that bet.
Pharell opens “JU$T” with the pre-chorus, spitting varied examples of how we’re all slaves to our current system throughout the track, over echoing snares and bouncy 808s before bright synth chords and up-tempo hi-hats burst in while Killer Mike delivers the chorus, pointing to the fact that the majority of the people featured on American currency owned slaves at one point in their lives. Mike’s verse touches on the fact that he has committed crimes to get where they are today. Mike is publicly open about his past as a drug dealer. So why is he a criminal, but Benjamin Franklin isn’t? These are the people who built our country, and they built it on the backs of slaves. He illustrates this theme with a more recent examples:

You believe corporations runnin marijuana? Ooh (how that happen?)
and your country gettin ran by a casino owner (ooh)
pedophiles sponsor all these fuckin’ racist bastards (they do)

When corporations are able to sell cannabis legally, but the government continually incarcerates people who trap, our president is a notoriously fraudulent businessman, and the people who helped put him in power run a pedophile ring, yet none of them face consequences and are allowed to continue to profit and remain in power while people suffer; well, we might be closer to slaves than previously imagined.
Rage Against The Machine frontman Zach de la Rocha also makes his mandatory feature appearance at the end of “JU$T”. As the only artist to feature on three Run The Jewels albums, Zach is essentially an unofficial member of the group at this point. His fiery verse is spit with the same “Rage” energy that set him apart in the mid-90’s, ending the track questioning his place in a capitalist society as a recipe for his inevitable demise, since his “breath”, or art, as his weapon to express himself is still being exploited for other’s profit.
Continuing with RTJ4’s heavily synthetic sonic palette, “never look back” features wavering synth leads resting above the slow-jams snappy snares and thumping bass, while a haunting voice echoes in the background. This unsettling aura provides additional gravity for Jamie and Mike to continue self-reflecting on defining moments in their childhood, and as well as how far they’ve come from those moments. Mike and El are both self-made men, and while they have a certain fondness for those gritty moments that defined them, moving forward in life is undoubtedly more important.
Skeletal drums reminiscent of a slowly pounding heart opens “pulling the pin”, before rhythmic hi-hats and textured, watery synths fluttering in the upper register resting above a bouncy synth lead, and punchy 808s, burst in. The track digs itself into a slower, marching groove and shows the duo figuratively doing exactly what the title implies. Painting a portrait of a society that has turned on itself, Mike and El are ready to pull the pin and start over.
The duo both detail their despise for the ruling class, pointing out multiple examples of how the elite have designed our society to keep poor people in their class. Simultaneously recognizing their own hypocrisy for profiting in a system that inherently discriminates; Mike reflects on his own success, knowing that living the lifestyle he enjoys is one built on oppression, and expresses the guilt that has caused him. El-P opens with a brutal metaphor for police, implying that they’re the root cause of the “wretched state of danger” our society exists within, and that the only effective corrective action is to numb yourself with drugs. Despite his advice, Jamie knows this is not a permanent solution, but one that causes more self-inflicted wounds.
The final piece of the puzzle that is RTJ4, “a few words for the firing squad” begins to close the album with ever crescending strings, and loud, thunderous drums which never seem to resolve, continuing throughout their verses. While the drums that lead to nowhere can be sonically unpleasant, the unresolved melodies are intentionally representative of their current mindsets. Their verses are reflective and grim, but simultaneously optimistic and envisions a world where tragedy is a less common occurrence.
El is grateful for what he has now but recognizes his entire life has been skewed by traumas, so out of place feels normal for him. He reflects on his current success, noting that the worst people tend to end up with the most, which makes becoming “rich” something not as desirable as it once was.
Mike opens up about the death of his mother who died while he was on an airplane, admitting his struggles to not cope with his trauma with opioids. However, his wife provides him the most important reason to stay clean “but my queen/say she need a king/not another junkie rapper fiend” while a heartbreaking saxophone solo highlights the gravity of his lyrics.
The track ends with what sounds the like wrap-up voiceover to a TV show, a conceptually satisfying ending, as the opening track “yankee and brave (ep.4)” began with El-P stating:

”This week, on Yankee and The Brave”

This voiceover paints the duo as brothers on the run from the law and crooked cops, and while this does close this “episode” out as intended, the critic in me is bothered by the slightly kitschy outro to such a spectacular album. The voices singing over and over, “Brave, brave, braaaaaave, Yankee and the Brave” would be, simply put, better left on the cutting room floor. The ending of this track alone is what knocks my score of this album down a few points. Despite its stellar lyrical content, with drums that never seem to reach that “holy shit!” moment, and the easily skippable outro, it’s upsetting to me that an album this great ends on such a low note.
Overview
RTJ4 is by far my favorite album of the year. El-P’s cutting edge approach to their sound, blended with lyrical content that continues to be more relevant by the day, the duo have come together with what is objectively their most accessible album to date. RTJ4 is the natural evolution of sound and subject matter for the duo; taking the foundation set by Run The Jewels 3 and evolving it into a more concise, more accessible, and more conceptual album. While I still personally prefer the “fuck the world” intensity and experimental nature of Run The Jewels 2, RTJ4 opens themselves up to a whole new world of exposure, and when you’re as talented as these two, you know they’re going to capitalize on it. RTJ is currently at their apex, and they’ve created an album that will make many new life-long fans going forward.
9.2/10
Discussion Points

How does this compare to other RTJ releases? How about in comparison to the member’s solo works?
Does the overwhelmingly positive critical reception of this album surprise you?
How will this be looked back on in 5 years?
What are your favorite lyrics?

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