"How Do I Make You Love Me?" by The Weeknd

"How Do I Make You Love Me" puts you straight into the passenger seat of a DeLorean on a midnight drive. This is the third track off of 2022's "Dawn FM" by The Weeknd puts Abel Tesfaye's skills as light-touch tenor with a killer falsetto on full display as he reverberates over danceable beats and some truly sick synth production and composition work.

"How Do I Make You Love Me?" opens with a spare beat and teasing synth swells that feel glossy and anxious. (That same anxious and teasing synth will put us in a headlock about 40 seconds in.) Layered vocal glitches stab and float at the edges of the mix throughout, making this a real treat in a nice pair of headphones.

Let's get this out of the way: the dynamic range on "Dawn FM" sucks. It's touted by some as a victim of the loudness wars. I gotta say, I just don't care. This is a great example of how that measurement can fail as a lone test of quality. Whether you play this on a $100,000 stereo or a $100 set of headphones, it sounds fantastic. It may be compressed as hell, but there are depths to reveal. It's a bit of a mystery to me, honestly.

The Weeknd leans into a retro palette here, but the core is unmistakably modern. His voice arrives soft and close before blossoming into impressive vocal acrobatics as he settles in. Abel's performance is affecting a kind of confident desperation typical of his outings. This is dance pop for people who are well aware of the sugar-coated short form escapism the genre does best.

What stands out most to me is how luxurious and spare this track and this album can be at different times. The production supports that tension. It is all a careful balance of raw intimacy and polish, which has become one of his trademarks. The kick lands with a soft, rounded punch that keeps the groove alive without overwhelming the rest of the mix. Sub bass synth lines, snare hits, and shakers weave around each other peppering the soundstage with laser precision. The whole arrangement feels engineered for propulsion. It is worth noting that "Dawn FM" is a concept album and the end of "How Do I Make You Love Me" transitions seamlessly into the excellent fourth track, "Take My Breath". 

"How Do I Make You Love Me?" works because it understands seduction in sound design. It is pop music that knows exactly what it is, what the moves are, and how it can move you.

Listen for: The way the synths absolutely storm the stage in the bridge and chorus, and how the vocal is produced to capture every affectation in The Weeknd's considerable bag of tricks.

Data

Song: How Do I Make You Love Me?
Album: Dawn FM
Artist: The Weeknd
Genre: Pop, Synth Pop
Year: 2022
Length: 3:34
Producer: OPN, The Weeknd
Composer: Abel Tesfaye, Axel Hedfors, Daniel Lopatin, Matt Cohn, Max Martin, Oscar Holter, Sebastian Ingrosso, Steve Angello