“What a lovely and unforgettable expertise as an artist,” The Weeknd says in voiceover early into his new Spotify unique live performance movie.
Billions Membership Reside with The Weeknd: A Live performance Movie is the primary for the streaming platform. Launched natively on the streaming platform first, the over 45-minute movie chronicles the artist’s December Billions Membership Reside present. The inaugural dwell occasion invited a crop of The Weeknd’s prime listeners to an airplane hangar at Santa Monica airport for a one-night, unique live performance that featured his Billions Membership songs together with “Can’t Really feel My Face,” “The Hills,” “Earned It,” “I Really feel It Coming” and “Save Your Tears.”
The Weeknd, on face worth, seems as an ideal decide for Spotify’s first Billions Membership Reside and its live performance movie, but it surely goes deeper than simply the artist’s massive streaming numbers (The Weeknd has extra songs in Spotify’s Billions Membership than some other musician and holds the title for many streamed track together with his 2020 hit “Blinding Lights.”). “It seems like we’ve grown up collectively,” Spotify’s VP of selling and partnerships Marc Hazan tells The Hollywood Reporter in an unique interview. “In the event you have a look at the timeline of The Weeknd and Spotify, they’re fairly tightly interlinked. He got here up the identical time we did.”
Hazan says Spotify labored with the “Starboy” artist’s crew to discover a method to mark the event of 25 of his songs reaching the Billions Membership, they usually settled on a live performance that he might carry out these songs (and extra) for over 1,700 of his prime followers on the streaming platform. Then that may very well be launched as a movie, produced by OBB Photos, in means Spotify had by no means finished earlier than.
Billions Membership Reside with The Weeknd: A Live performance Movie is indicative of a brand new period of Spotify, which has been within the works for a while. “Video in itself is turning into an even bigger a part of the Spotify expertise,” Hazan says, noting that podcasts have advanced to incorporate movies and music movies are at the moment in beta on the platform.
“What it does permit us to do is create these actually wonderful moments with artists and produce them not solely to people who are within the room, however to everybody on platform,” he continues.
The platform hopes that the sudden movie drop will “shock and delight” Spotify customers. “They’re going to have lengthy kind video content material in a means that they’ve by no means had it earlier than. Our customers and followers of The Weeknd are going to get to expertise this primary on Spotify,” Hazan explains. “It’s a part of that type of evolution of a platform the place consumption evolves from being about simply your ears to your eyes and your ears. I feel that is the route of journey.”
The Weeknd followers have the power to observe the 48-minute movie on Spotify in almost all markets. The movie additionally options voiceover of the artist reflecting on his profession and expressing gratitude to followers.
The Weeknd is getting ready to launch a brand new album, Hurry Up Tomorrow, on Jan. 24. It can function the finale to his album trilogy following 2022’s Daybreak FM and 2020’s After Hours. He’s slated to carry out a one-night-only live performance on the Rose Bowl in Pasadena the next day. A Lionsgate suspense thriller of the identical identify – starring and produced by The Weeknd, alongside Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan – is slated for launch on Might 16.
