“It’s gonna end how you expected, girl, you’re such a masochist,” Abel Tesfaye warns. That spoiler alert shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Canadian smoothie who records as The Weeknd has helped make R&B a creepier place, crooning too-honest come-ons over cavernous, ballad-slow tracks that balance leering sensuality with vague menace. His third mixtape inside of a year opens with a cover of Michael Jackson’s violence-tinged “Dirty Diana,” setting the tone for a record that goes well beyond the plush glumness of his pal Drake to make sex seem downright sepulchural – from the sad-pianos title track, where a booty call sounds almost suicidal, to the mournfully booming “Montreal,” where Tesfaye sings in forlorn French and testifies “I’m a pro at letting go.” For this guy, every romantic beginning is only a means to the end.

Listen to "Montreal":  

“Ambling Alp”

The "Ambling Alp" was the nickname of the six-and-a-half-foot-tall Primo Carnera. Though the song is named after the Italian-born 1930s heavyweight champion, Yeasayer are actually paying tribute to boxing legend Joe Louis with this first-person psychedelic dance-rock tune. “I was always interested in writing a song that had boxing mythology in it,” Yeasayer’s Chris Keating said. “It’s pretty fascinating: There were so many amazing characters, and it was so closely entwined with 20th century history.” Yeaseyer also invokes German champ Max Schmeling and hints at the historical significance placed on the historic bouts between the Nazi-era boxer and the African-American Louis.