The Weeknd announces new album, ‘Beauty Behind the Madness’

The Weeknd’s move into mainstream pop stardom now has an official release date.

The project from Toronto singer Abel Tesfaye has announced a new album, “Beauty Behind the Madness,” scheduled to come out Aug. 28 on XO/Republic. It’s the followup to his well-received 2013 album “Kiss Land.”

The record will contain several well-known recent tracks that highlight Tesfaye’s shift from nihilistic after-hours gloom into more danceable, almost Michael Jackson-inspired terrain. Singles “Can’t Feel My Face,” “Often” and “The Hills” will appear on the LP, and the former should be familiar to Apple Music users, who heard it during the product’s launch event.

The LP should mark a major transition for Tesfaye, who came of age as a more sinister counterpart to Drake but who now is rivaling even his mentor in influence and popularity (both closed out sets at Coachella this year).

The Weeknd’s song “Earned It” was the main theme for the the “50 Shades of Grey” film, and his collaboration with Ariana Grande, “Love Me Harder,” proved he can credibly translate his talent into a spritzed-up pop setting.

“Can’t Feel My Face” was even co-produced by the top-40 force of nature Max Martin, a collaboration that would have been hard to imagine in 2010 at the height of Tesfaye’s drugs-and-gloom debut, but now heralds his arrival to a new sphere of stardom.

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