If you’re crying for joy that The Weeknd and Ariana Grande have once again collaborated on a track, well, grab a tissue and, as the song says, “Save Your Tears.” Nearly a decade after these two first teamed up, The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye, 31) and Ariana, 27, partnered to remix his song from his 2019 album, After Hours. The remix also comes with a brand-new music video in which The Weeknd and Ariana transform into cartoon characters. But this isn’t a video for kids — the animated visuals play out a compelling plot.
In the music video for the “Save Your Tears” remix, we are taken deep down into The Weeknd’s secret laboratory in the desert where he is constructing the perfect Ms. Grande. This also seems to be a wink at the fact that Ariana also acted as a mad scientist to build the perfect Ari robot in her music video for “34 + 35.” You can watch the trippy animation above, which was directed by Jack Brown (who was also in charge of character design).
The Weeknd and Ariana first teased that they were working together on Monday (Apr. 19) when they both shared an eight-second snippet of their vocals harmonizing the lyrics, “I don’t know why I run away.” A few days later, they confirmed the collab by sharing the remix’s official artwork to their social media accounts. The art depicted an animated version of Ariana being reflected in the giant sunglasses of The Weeknd’s After Hours character.
thursday 9pm pst @theweeknd https://t.co/QzRSNTY2jO pic.twitter.com/kng2aSBr1G
— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) April 21, 2021
“Save Your Tears (Remix)” marks the third time that these two have teamed up. They previously connected on “off the table,” from Ariana’s 2020 album, Positions. They first worked together six years earlier on “Love Me Harder” from Ariana’s sophomore album, My Everything. Released in 2014, “Love Me Harder” peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it Ariana’s fourth consecutive top-ten single off of her album. It was The Weeknd’s first top ten entry in the United States. Both “Love Me Harder” and “Earned It” – released in December 2014, the lead single to the Fifty Shade of Grey soundtrack – helped introduced The Weeknd to a wider, mainstream audience. It laid the groundwork for his subsequent superstar success – “The Hills” and “Can’t Feel My Face” would arrive in 2015, with “Starboy” following in 2016 – but the collab did more than that. “Love Me Harder” introduced The Weeknd to Max Martin, one of the song’s writers and one of the most successful songwriters in modern history.
“Ariana was kinda my foot in the door with Max, my chance to show him ‘I can play this game,’ y’know?” he told Variety in 2020. “But when we got in the room together, we didn’t really connect as much. Then someone invited him to a show I did at the Hollywood Bowl, and he saw 15,000 people singing along, and I think he was like, ‘OK, there’s something I’m not getting.’ So we sat down again, and the first song we created was ‘In the Night.’” They also worked on the aforementioned “Can’t Feel My Face,” four songs from Starboy, as well as six tracks from After Hours, including the chart-topping “Blinding Lights,” and the original “Save Your Tears.”
“Max and I have become literally the best of friends, but I don’t do that with many people,” The Weeknd told Variety. “It’s not that I can’t, but a collaboration is a relationship, it’s like a marriage, you’ve gotta build up to it.”