The Weeknd - Starboy (feat. Daft Punk)

Rihanna’s ‘ANTI’, and the wait that preceded its release, signalled the end of her impressive, exhaustive knack for churning out one album per year. That’s left a gaping hole in the pop world - save for the guarantee that Diplo will be responsible for 60% of breakthrough hits, there are very few inevitabilities with today’s superstars.

Enter Abel Tesfaye, a man who’s truly shed himself of Tumblr-happy mixtape beginnings, instead opting to become the next Michael Jackson, or at the very least the next best thing. He’s willing to fill the void.

New album ‘Starboy’ arrives just over a year after last year’s ‘Beauty Behind the Madness’, a hit factory blueprint in going for the pop jugular. Reclusive robots Daft Punk have even been coaxed out of the shadows for a title-track, but that’s near enough the only surprise running through ‘Starboy’. That’s not to say it’s painfully beige and box-ticking, more exactly what you’d expect from a ‘sound of the summer’ late bloomer. Mournful keys and an even sadder-sounding Tesfaye share the spotlight with thudding bass and Daft Punk’s token ‘don’t forget that we’re supposed to be androids’, Robocop sampling. For a collaboration that on paper would have stolen the spotlight on ‘Random Access Memories’, it’s arrived a couple of years late.