Song Review: The Weeknd 'Blinded by the Light' is an Aural Time Machine

I want to live inside the synth track on The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights. Growing up in the 80’s, I feel like I did grow up inside that synth track. The Weeknd has taken us all back in time to 1981, the founding of MTV and the ascension of new wave. It’s beautiful, man. Often I have wondered if it were possible to recreate an aesthetic in art perfectly and The Weeknd has done it.

If you dropped Blinding Lights onto a mix next to Take On Me by A-Ha and Kajagoogoo's Too Shy, you would assume they came out in the same musical moment. That’s how remarkably evocative Blinding Lights is as a re-creation of a sonic aesthetic. The synth line that runs throughout Blinding Lights is the kind of perfection musicians dream of. The synth line is the hook, it’s better than any lyric in the song at investing you in the song.

The synth is preceded by the most precise and elegant drum machine drops since A-Ha’s Take on Me made that sound iconic. The machine on Blinding Lights is nearly as essential as that remarkable synth line. Listening to it, I feel like I am drinking in the 1980’s all over again. Blinding Lights is a time machine in musical form unlike any I have ever heard before. I am almost in tears thinking of my youth spent with Duran Duran, Kajagoogoo and A-Ha.

You could drop Blinding Lights directly into a John Hughes movie and it would not miss a beat. It’s lyrically more mature with themes a tad beyond the Hughes demo, but sonically it fits like a glove. If not John Hughes, then perhaps place Blinding Lights into something like Michael J Fox’s Bright Lights, Big City or, even better, Less than Zero. Imagine The Weeknd co-existing with the work of 80’s era Bret Easton Ellis. Wow!

It’s rare for me to get this deep into a song review and not have tackled any of the lyrics but I’m just so taken with the sound of Blinding Lights that the lyrics have barely registered to me on the 25th replay of the song. I’m busy now picking up on the low end bass notes buried deep beneath the drum machine but doing much of the heavy lifting in giving that glorious synth line space to thrive.

The scent of a 1980’s teen nightclub emanates from Blinding Lights. Until now, I’ve compared Blinding Lights to mainstream hits such as Take on Me or the work of Duran Duran but I can just as easily see moody 80’s teens jamming Blinding Lights in the same set as Depeche Mode and The Cure. That is just how dynamic Blinding Lights is, the influences are powerful and omni-present and yet a myriad.

The more adult tone of The Weeknd’s vocal lends itself toward something more complex than the mainstream New Wave, something more akin to Depeche Mode. There is an ache of experience and weariness to The Weeknd’s vocal that is not at odds with the glorious synth line, but rather something that deepens and enriches the sound. The vocal lends the music an emotional depth that it might otherwise lack in the way say Kajagoogoo or Soft Cell was lacking.

So, about the lyrics. I’m told by some gossip nonsense that the song was inspired by The Weeknd’s allegedly rocky relationship with Bella Hadid. I have no idea and I don’t really care. Removing the context of the man’s personal life, the lyrics are about obsession. They are about a man so consumed with passion that he is blind to anything else. The opening stanza is about a man realizing that he’s fallen in love and that is life is empty and cold without the person he loves.

The rest of the song is a race against time to get back to this woman. He’s made up his mind and the synth is like an aural embodiment of his racing pulse as he rushes to be near the love of his life. The drum machine is a heartbeat, rushing faster than normal as his excitement and conviction builds. He needs this woman as she is the only one who can slow the beat of his heart, his rapid pulse.

Thus the song ends with a break, everything that was pulsating with kinetic energy is suddenly flattened out, stretched out, relaxing to a lovely, slow fade. The song ends perfectly as does the marriage of lyrics and music. The music and lyrics work in perfect harmony to communicate the excitement of and perfection of realizing that you’re in love and the soothing calm that comes with being loved.

Blinding Lights is one of the best pop songs I have heard in years.