Albums of 2011, No 8: The Weeknd – House of Balloons

This free download was anything but throwaway. The chillwave-tinged R&B spoke of codeine, cold sex and pills … and invited you to luxuriate in Abel Tesfaye's heartacheHouse of Balloons was the debut album by this Toronto-based artist, and was so hip, so 2011, it hurt: R&B inf(l)ected by chillwave, it was shrouded in mystery, only transpiring later that the Weeknd was a 21-year-old Ethiopian-Canadian called Abel Tesfaye whose conception of soul – think the xx produced by the-Dream, or vice ve...

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