Just 72 hours after he dropped his new album “After Hours,” The Weeknd followed with a deluxe edition that includes five bonus tracks: four remixes and the audio from his “Saturday Night Live” performance of the album’s “Scared to Live.”
He also tweeted in the early hours of Monday that a video for the album cut “In Your Eyes” is coming at 12 p.m. ET/ 9 a.m. PT., and promised earlier in the weekend “Lots of videos from this album!”
The deluxe-edition drop was an unexpected move that seems likely to boost the album’s first-week tally, which is already headed to be the biggest of the year, even more: Prognosticators estimate that it will have shifted around 400,000 album-equivalent units in its first week, topping BTS’ “Map of the Soul: 7,” which racked up 218,000 units, according to Rolling Stone.
“After Hours” was met with an ecstatic reaction when it dropped on Thursday, at the end of a crushing week of awful news as the coronavirus spread in North America and worsened in Europe. It surpassed 100 million global streams on its first day of release, while songs from it occupied the top 12 spots on Apple Music’s Top 100 and 14 of the top 15 on Spotify.
The deluxe edition of the album a remix of “Heartless” by Vapor Wave featuring rapper Lil Uzi Vert, one of “Save Your Tears” by Oneohtrix Point Never, one of the title track by The Blaze and one of “Blinding Lights” by Chromatics. The set is rounded out by the audio of Weeknd’s “Saturday Night Live” performance of “Scared to Live.” Listen to it here.
The Weeknd was active on Twitter early Monday and, in an unintentionally comic exchange, shot down fans’ questions about a rumored “blue version” of the album featuring new songs. After responding “blue what?,” “where did you read that rumor?” and replying the version doesn’t exist, the fans admitted they’d made up the rumor.