Albums: The Weeknd, 'House of Balloons'

The other Tumblr act to come out of nowhere to clog up your dashboard, The Weeknd, nee Abel Tesfaye, was the antithesis of Odd Future: self-assured where OFWGKTA was sloppy, provocative instead of offensive, inventive not gimmicky. "House of Balloons," the first of his trilogy, is a seriously pervy Canadian mixtape that sounds so classy it begs to belong in an Alan Rudolph movie starring Julie Christie. Its that subtlety that makes it transgressive. --E.M.

December 27, 2011