The Weeknd releases new album Dawn FM: Tracklist, features and how to stream

New record, announced just this week, features collaborations with Tyler, the Creator and Jim Carrey

The Weeknd’s much-hyped fifth studio album, Dawn FM, has finally dropped.

The follow-up to 2020’s After Hours consists of 16 tracks, featuring collaborations with Tyler, the Creator and Jim Carrey, among others.

Dawn FM was announced on 3 January – just four days before the release day was announced – with the pop and R&B artist, real name Abel Tesfaye, sharing a Twitter post captioned: “New album: dawn FM // january 7th.”

He accompanied it with a one-minute teaser video for what he called “a new sonic universe from the mind of The Weeknd”.

In a four-star review of the record for The Independent, critic Roisin O’Connor wrote that the “darkly shimmering” Dawn FM is a “welcome addition to the canon of one of our greatest living pop artists”.

Find out everything you need to know about the new album here.

Full tracklist

01 “Dawn FM”

02 “Gasoline”

03 “How Do I Make You Love Me?”

04 “Take My Breath”

05 “Sacrifice”

06 “A Tale by Quincy”

07 “Out of Time”

08 “Here We Go… Again” ft Tyler, the Creator

09 “Best Friends”

10 “Is There Someone Else?”

11 “Starry Eyes”

12 “Every Angel Is Terrifying”

13 “Don’t Break My Heart”

14 “I Heard You’re Married” ft Lil Wayne

15 “Less Than Zero”

16 “Phantom Regret by Jim”

Who features on Dawn FM?

The album sees The Weeknd working with collaborators Quincy Jones, Tyler, the Creator, Lil Wayne, Oneohtrix Point Never, Swedish House Mafia, Max Martin, Calvin Harris, Uncut Gems co-director Josh Safdie and actor Jim Carrey.

Teasing the album earlier this week, Carrey tweeted: “I listened to Dawn FM with my good friend Abel @theweeknd last night.

“It was deep and elegant and it danced me around the room. I’m thrilled to play a part in his symphony.”

The Weeknd responded, saying: “Thank you for being a part of this. It’s kismet. Full circle.”

Jim Carrey is credited on The Weeknd’s new album (Getty)

The surprise announcement

Dawn FM was announced on 3 January, just four days before the album dropped. The announcement came a few days after The Weeknd hinted at the impending release of a new record in a message shared on social media.

On 1 January, the musician had posted a screenshot of a text exchange between himself and La Mar Taylor, the XO Records creative director who serves as his creative director.

“Happy New Year brother! What we thinking ??” asked Taylor in the message.

“Happy new year!” responded the singer. “Everything feels chaotic again. Music can heal and that feels more important than another album rollout.

“Let’s just drop the whole thing and enjoy it with the people… XO.”

Dawn FM’s release has been strikingly different to The Weeknd’s drawn-out campaign for his 2020 album After Hours.

The first single from After Hours, “Blinding Lights”, was teased in a Mercedez-Benz ad in November 2019, a whole five months before the album came out. Later that month, he released lead single “Heartless” and “Blinding Lights”, which became his fourth and fifth No 1 singles, respectively.

In February 2020, The Weeknd revealed that his fourth studio album would be titled After Hours, and would be released on 20 March. An appearance as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live, alongside actor Daniel Craig, followed.

When After Hours eventually launched, it became the most streamed R&B album of all-time, surpassing The Weeknd’s own Starboy.

In November 2020, “Blinding Lights” overtook Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” to take the No 1 spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 Songs of All-Time chart.

Read The Independent’s review of After Hours here.

How to stream Dawn FM

Fans can listen to Dawn FM in full on the platforms below.

Spotify

Apple Music

YouTube Music

Amazon Music

Qobuz

iTunes Store

Deezer

Tidal

Will Dawn FM be released on vinyl?

Yes, it will eventually, but not yet. The Weeknd has said he’s not fussed about having physical copies of the new album available during release week.

He was responding to a tweet, which said: “No physical copies (vinyls, CDs, cassettes) for @theweeknd’s Dawn FM will be available in store during release week. Furthermore, no physical copies will be shipped the first week. This will obviously impact first week figures.”

The Weeknd replied: “This doesn’t matter to me. what matters is getting to experience the album together with the fans during these times.”

The official Weeknd online store says that CDs, vinyl and cassette copies of Dawn FM will be shipped to customers from 28 January.