“Can’t Feel My Face” by The Weeknd

song info

    “Can’t Feel My Face” by The Weeknd (official video) is a pop song.

    Rolling Stone Top Songs of 2015: Can’t Feel My Face (official video) was selected number #1 in Rolling Stone Magazine’s 50 Best Songs of 2015. See Rolling Stone.

link to the static song information page for this song:
http://www.thissideofsanity.com/music/songs/ca/cantfeelmyface.php

    Summary quotation from Wikipedia:

    “Can’t Feel My Face” is a song by Canadian recording artist The Weeknd. The track was released on June 8, 2015, as the second single from his second studio album, Beauty Behind the Madness (2015). It was written by Ali Payami, Savan Kotecha, Max Martin, Abel Tesfaye and Peter Svensson and produced by Payami, Martin and Svensson.

    The song has received commercial success, peaking at number one on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Canadian Hot 100 — apart from its widespread domestic success, the single has also peaked at the number-one position in New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, and South Africa, and was a top-ten hit in other territories, such as Australia, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom, to become Tesfaye’s most successful single to date. The single has received positive reviews from critics, who noted similarities between the song and works by Michael Jackson.

    “Can’t Feel My Face” leaked in late May 2015. It was officially released on June 8, 2015 following a performance by The Weeknd at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on the same day. The song is composed in the key of A minor and has a tempo of 108 beats per minute. The vocal range spans from E₃ to E₅.

Critical reception

    The song received positive reviews from music critics. Brennan Carley of Spin called it “pop perfection”, “a thoroughly definitive, all-in jam” and predicted the song would “reach ’Uptown Funk’ levels of airplay and ubiquity.” Time’s Esther Zuckerman deemed the song a “New Favorite Contender for Song of the Summer” and wrote that the chorus was “infectious”. In June 2015, Jason Lipshutz of Billboard named it one of the “10 Best Songs of 2015 (So Far)”.

    Consequence of Sound compared the sound of the song to Michael Jackson. Complex wrote: “The song has a classic pop feel to it, with The Weeknd channeling a bit of Michael Jackson while crooning over the bouncy, and energetic production from Max Martin.” Pitchfork Media’s reviewer Renato Pagnani placed it in the Best New Track category and made the same comparison: “Perhaps recognizing just how dead-on Tesfaye’s Michael Jackson impersonation was on his cover of “Dirty Diana”, the producers anchor the track with a bassline that could have come from an alternate-dimension “Thriller” produced by New Age composer Vangelis instead of Quincy Jones.”

Chart performance

    “Can’t Feel My Face” debuted at no. 24 on the Billboard Hot 100, making a Hot Shot Debut on the chart; it was The Weeknd’s second Hot Shot Debut in a month after his previous single “The Hills”. It produced first-week digital sales of 93,000 units and garnered 4.2 million US streams and 38 million airplay audiences. In its third week on the chart, the song reached no. 6 on the Hot 100, making it his third top 10 hit, and his second solo top 10 hit. After three weeks at no. 2, “Can’t Feel My Face” ascended to no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, replacing OMI’s “Cheerleader” and becoming The Weeknd’s first number-one single on that chart. It has spent three non-consecutive weeks in three separate runs at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the sixth song to achieve this feat, and the first song to do so since Bruno Mars’s “Grenade” in 2011. In its third week at no. 1, “The Hills” reached no. 2, becoming the first act since The Black Eyed Peas to attain the top two positions on the Hot 100 as a lead artist. The following week, “The Hills” topped the chart, making The Weeknd the first artist since Taylor Swift to replace themselves at the top spot; “Can’t Feel My Face” fell to no. 3.

    It debuted at no. 27 in Australia on June 20. It later peaked at No. 2 on that chart. In New Zealand, the song debuted at no. 12 on June 22 and spent four non-consecutive weeks at no. 2, before reaching no. 1 in its ninth week on the chart. In the United Kingdom, “Can’t Feel My Face” debuted at no. 34, two weeks after “The Hills” had debuted on the chart. It later peaked at no. 3, becoming The Weeknd’s second top 10 single in the country (after “Earned It” peaked at no. 4 earlier in the year), and also his highest-charting single in the country to date.

Music video

    The accompanying music video, directed by Grant Singer, was released on July 28, 2015 on Apple Music. It begins with The Weeknd singing in a bar to an unimpressed audience until a man, who appeared in the “The Hills” video, arrives and sets him on fire. The crowd including his love interest (played by Chanel Iman) then stands up and starts to dance. The video ends when the singer walks out of the bar.

    Time’s reviewer Nolan Feeney wrote that The Weeknd “shines the spotlight on Tesfaye as he delivers a (literally) explosive performance”. For Bianca Gracie of Idolator, “the usually-moody singer is refreshingly energetic”. Jon Blistein of Rolling Stone deemed the video “simple but riveting”. Slava Pastuk of Noisey called the video “a bit corny, but weirdly great?” USA Today’s Brian Mansfield wrote: “Like his previous video for The Hills, it’s sometimes troubling clip, full of fire and mayhem.” Jason Lipshutz of Billboard opined that the video is “certainly a sonic homage to MJ, and watching the Weeknd strut around ablaze is an eery coincidence.” Similarly, Michelle Geslani of Consequence of Sound wrote: “Abel Tesfaye is seen busting a couple of moves — no doubt, again, channeling Michael Jackson”. Eric Diep of BET also described the video as an “homage to Michael Jackson”, noting similarities in the vocals and dance moves.

Live performances

    The Weeknd performed the song live for the first time at Apple WWDC 2015, the day before its digital release. On July 10, Taylor Swift invited The Weeknd on stage for her 1989 World Tour in East Rutherford at the MetLife Stadium. The song was performed live on television for the first time at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. He performed it at the Billboard Hot 100 Festival and Made in America Festival.

In popular culture

    On July 27, 2015, actor Tom Cruise performed to “Can’t Feel My Face” in a “Lip Sync Battle” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The song is also featured in the 2015 video game Madden NFL 16. Singer Stevie Wonder performed a parody of the song during a surprise pop-up concert at Central Park’s SummerStage in New York City, August 17, 2015. NASCAR driver David Ragan posted a video lip syncing the song to his No. 55 Toyoto in response to a commonly asked question “What is it like driving a NASCAR Sprint Cup car?” On September 7, 2015, popular YouTube channel Barack’s Dubs uploaded a mashup video of Barack Obama singing the song. The song has also been named 2015’s US Song of the Summer by Spotify. On September 15, 2015 during a game of “The Wheel Of Musical Impersonations” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Jimmy Fallon sang Can’t Feel My Face in the style of Sting and Ariana Grande sang it in the style of Céline Dion.

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