There’s a moment in The Weeknd’s song “D.D.” from his Dawn FM album where you stop and do a double take. The falsetto. The phrasing.
The way the syllables land. It doesn’t just sound influenced by Michael Jackson. It sounds like him.
That’s not a coincidence. The Weeknd has talked about Michael’s influence since the beginning of his career.
When he first read the lyrics to Dirty Diana, he said he got emotional — it was the moment he knew he wanted to write songs. D.D. is his direct tribute to that.
The vocal resemblance in that track is the kind of thing that makes longtime MJ fans stop mid-listen.
The Similarity Of Their Voice Is Unbelievable
But it goes beyond one song.
THE CHORD PROGRESSIONS IN “THE HILLS” MIRROR THE TENSION OF THRILLER so closely that mashups of the two went viral the moment people noticed.
“In The Night” pulls the same swinging groove patterns as The Way You Make Me Feel. And on Dawn FM, legendary producer Quincy Jones — the man behind Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad — appears in an interlude, placed directly between The Weeknd’s most MJ-influenced tracks. That wasn’t random.
The Hills – Official Music Video
The Weeknd himself once said he hoped to be as influential as Michael Jackson for today’s youth.
That’s an enormous thing to say out loud. But when you sit with the music, you understand why he said it.
Nobody could replace Michael Jackson.
The Weeknd isn’t trying to. But he’s the one artist right now where you can hear exactly where he learned to feel music — and that lineage is undeniable.