During his 2012 set at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, the Weeknd was every bit the fledgling artist. Unsure of himself onstage or in front of thousands of screaming fans, his first showing in the desert didn’t deliver on the hype surrounding his Internet mixtapes. There was even a mass exodus toward Gotye, on a nearby stage.
But what a difference a few years — and a few inescapable hits — makes. The singer, born Abel Tesfaye, has gone from Internet sensation to pop radio rainmaker to Oscar nominee in a little over a year.
And he did it all with a ballad about kinky sex.
“Earned It,” his slinky anthem from the “Fifty Shades of Grey” soundtrack, is a contender for original song at the Oscars. It’s up against Sam Smith’s Golden Globe-winning Bond theme “Writing’s on the Wall,” David Lang’s “Simple Song 3,” “Til It Happens to You” by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga, and “Manta Ray” by J. Ralph and Antony and the Johnsons’ Antony Hegarty.
That a quasi-dirty tune such as “Earned It” is in the running for an Oscar speaks to the Weeknd’s bursting pop appeal. In fact, “Earned It” got the ball rolling on what ended up being a massive year for the artist.