Since Abel Tesfaye released Kiss Land in 2013, he’s been doing “all the politicin’” as he sang on “Tell Your Friends.” He appeared as a featured artist on songs such as “Love Me Harder” by Ariana Grande and his song “Earned It” was on the soundtrack for Fifty Shades of Grey. His single “Can’t Feel My Face” took him to the top of the Billboard charts, where he has remained for four weeks. It seems like it was just yesterday he was releasing mixtapes and was relatively unknown in the mainstream pop scene. Now, Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd, is up there with Grande and Ed Sheeran in terms of radio play, sellout concerts and huge fan followings.

But as he makes the transition from unknown artist to pop star, it was expected that he would at least slightly deviate from the slow and dark music that gained him success with his three mixtapes. Beauty Behind the Madness is a good mix of that same music along with faster paced pop. It’s always interesting to see an artist grow and develop, and The Weeknd delivers an amazing sophomore album that shows his growth while still maintaining his signature dark R&B.

The most radio friendly song on the record, without a doubt, is “Can’t Feel My Face.” The song feels like a throwback Michael Jackson track, with an upbeat drum and bass line, courtesy of Swedish pop producer Max Martin. Martin has produced many other singles that rose to the top of the pop charts, from “Baby One More Time” to “Bad Blood.”

Other more upbeat songs on the album include “Losers,” in which Tesfaye sings about dropping out of high school and following his dreams. “In the Night,” also produced by Martin, also showcases drums reminiscent of 80s pop. Tesfaye said that the track was actually made as a tribute to Michael Jackson, and Jackson’s influence on Tesfaye is very evident on some of the songs on Beauty Behind the Madness.

There are also plenty of songs that feel like they could have come straight off of Echoes of Silence or House of Balloons, two of his trilogy of mixtapes released in 2011. The first song on the album, “Real Life,” begins with a blaring, almost noisy guitar as Tesfaye sings about how he tends to push away any girl that falls in love with him.

One of the best songs on the album, “Tell Your Friends,” features Kanye West helping out with production. Tesfaye sings about a wild lifestyle full of drug use and women, over a smooth yet menacing piano chord progression. The song sounds as if Jackson’s “Bad” was slowed down, smoothed out and put on all types of drugs as Tesfaye looks back on his life before he “made it big” and the things that fame has brought him, such as his cousin trying “to take a selfie at my Grandma’s funeral.”

Tesfaye is an excellent songwriter, and does a great job of portraying vivid pictures of his crazy life through his music. However, one criticism of Tesfaye has been that his content in all his songs is the same. Compare him with his contemporaries, such as Frank Ocean, for example. When Ocean released Channel Orange, he had songs such as “Pyramids,” “Crack Rock” and “Bad Religion.” Those three songs by themselves cover a wide range of topics. It would be great to see Tesfaye diversify the content of his lyrics.

Even though it can seem like he’s singing about the same things repeatedly at times, The Weeknd is still able to deliver an outstanding pop/R&B blend that has helped to solidify his status as one of the top artists in music. Rating: 9.1/10