When The Weeknd’s Earned It dropped at the turn of the year, it delivered somewhat of an uncharacteristic twist in the modern pop landscape. With chart-territory having been pretty-much divided between big club-stomping beats from the ‘EDM-sphere’, and your more ‘generic pop’ from the opposite spectrum, crooner-esque R&B rarely seemed to get a look in. However, what The Weeknd seemed to have delivered was an opportunity to showcase to a wider audience what the more underground music-heads had been aware of for a long time already; the Canadian was nothing less than an artistè!

After huge anticipation, The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind The Madness (from which Earned It was the first official cut) has finally appeared, and it’s a slice of sheer wonderment, potentially having the ability to turn the singer into a pop phenomenon.

With some mighty collaborations in the bag (Ed Sheeran and Labrinth both appear on impressively-strong cuts), Beauty Behind The Madness is a collection that’s not to be taken lightly. Whilst his 2013 project Kiss Land may have failed to live up to the hype, Beauty Behind The Madness looks to succeed far beyond what anything The Weeknd could have dreamed.

Grab a listen to the full album below via both Apple Music / iTunes and Spotify: