The Highlights by The Weeknd

For an artist like The Weeknd, putting together a greatest hits compilation must be especially difficult; each era and microevolution of his career feels deserving unto itself. His second such collection, *The Highlights*, manages the task with ease, pulling together all of his, well, highlights, stretching all the way to the beginning to include two cuts from his 2011 debut *House of Balloons*. (*The Highlights*\' release only misses the 10-year anniversary mark by a month.) In a clever touch, the compilation doesn\'t unfold sequentially. Instead, it gets moodier and darker as it goes on. The bright keys and danceable Max Martin-produced \'80s pop that have defined the latter half of his career open the proceedings like the climb of an intensely euphoric high. Songs like “Save Your Tears” (from 2020\'s *After Hours*), “Can\'t Feel My Face” (from 2015\'s *Beauty Behind the Madness*), and “Starboy” (from 2016\'s *Starboy*) sound like neon club lights and the sins committed beneath them. Then it pivots, slowly but steadily, to the comedown, where the singer\'s self-loathing finds a natural match in hazier, muddier productions. By the time the run of songs that includes “Call Out My Name” (from 2018\'s *My Dear Melancholy,*), “Die for You” (*Starboy*), and “Earned It” (*Beauty*) arrives, it\'s all id and nothing to cut it. And where else to go from there but to the original blueprint of his wounded, bleeding heart—“Wicked Games” and “The Morning” (both from *House of Balloons*)—where the lines between pleasure and pain blur into oblivion.

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