what is time

I don’t know if I want new songs but I do

Difference is that was an official image. The one he posted today was fan made

ye this was before he reposted on his story lol

Big IN

Whatever it is it will be god tier

Abel on Drake & Ari’s albums wonder who else

OPN

what makes you think he's on CLB? srs question

watch him hop on utopia next year

oh yeah I def see this, he's been on all of Trav's albums so I see it happening for sure

Drake???

Honestly don’t even need another album right now. He could just drop a lil EP early next year like MDM and I’d be fine

Beside the magazine interview thingy what other hints do we have that hes even dropping more new music though?

Just that + studio pics

I genuinely don’t think I could think of a single Abel track where I thought it reminded me of Prince. Subject matter, perhaps? Feels more just genuine homage than anything else.

Maybe, just maybe, a bit of Wanderlust? And even that obviously sounds much more MJ inspired.

nah he doesn't sound like Prince at all. reminds me of the weird Bowie/Pink Floyd references in some of the Starboy interviews.

king of the fall I think

might be subject matter i guess.

i never picked up on the prince influences tbh.

Yeah that’s what it was

READY !

Wonder if Doc put him on to him later in his life

He’s obviously a big fan of The Beautiful Ones, on numerous occasions he’s placed the track on various Spotify playlists:

open.spotify.com/playlist/0v7paA2MjbZHnx9q4kIj95?si=c_qagJgMQL-Slr9NBOwnrw

open.spotify.com/user/theweeknd/playlist/6bgsAZOo2yttIlFDubiFiI?si=2QTQNXpoSlSo9TEg3ttYZg

But I definitely agree with you and @Grenouille about Abel mostly paying an homage to P through subtle instrumental/production choices, rather than trying to ape some of his ideas for his own music (In Your Eyes is 100% inspired by MJ’s Another Part Of Me)

Two examples confirming this is the drum production on “Secrets” and “Nothing Compares”. Both tracks pay similar homage to P as to my ears, both tracks seem to use Linn LM-1 and Linn Drum, the drum machine that was essential to the establishment of prince’s Minneapolis Sound in the 80’s. I’d say the Linn is to Prince as to what the MPC is to Kanye.

Prince was known for running multiple filters, gated reverb and pitch control to get the drum sounds that is often associated with his sound. “Secrets” in particular uses this dry, gated reverb sound that is very similar to the Linn drum sounds on prince’s “Kiss”. Listen to how the snares sound in both tracks specifically;

Prince uses way more reverb on the kick, but as a whole, the drums are pretty similar, sonically.

Nothing Compares is a bit of a different case, as it doesn’t use any of those aforementioned effects on the drums, and goes for a more “vanilla” sound, which is something that P rarely did in his heyday, but did more when revisiting the Drum in his later days. I think the Linn drum usage here is a less obvious example of a prince homage due to its lack of effects, but I do find Nothing Compares to have an astonishingly similar sonic atmosphere to P’s “Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)”. In terms of songwriting, both tracks deal with themes of the sense of vulnerability in failed relationships.

TLDR: Abel is a huge fan of The Beautiful Ones, some Weeknd songs use similar drum production choices as Prince did.

good s***