The Weeknd Strikes Gold With Trilogy

They say the best things in life are free, but if repackaged properly, even the best can get better. The Weeknd gathered up his trio of free 2011 mixtapes, added a few new tracks and in November served fans with Trilogy. Now the Canadian singer/songwriter has a gold plaque for all of his notable work.

The Weeknd, who doesn't do any interviews and rarely tweets, did acknowledge the accomplishment over the social networking site on Monday night by retweeting a message from G.O.O.D. Music affiliate Million Dollar Mano. "shout 2 my young bro @theweeknd 4 #TheTrilogy going #Gold super proud," the DJ wrote before Abel repurposed the message.

The Weeknd built a dedicated fan base in 2011 with House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence and after he signed his deal with Republic Records, rolled it all into the 30-track Trilogy. He did add three tracks, "Twenty Eight," "Valerie" and "Till Dawn," but if the "Wicked Games" singer could sling 500,000 copies of a re-release the fan support for his upcoming proper debut album should be even greater.

On January 3, the Weeknd tweeted out "2013" with a screenshot of his Mac desktop attached. In the pic there were two folders, one labeled "2013 art work" and "2013 untitled album." The smidge of news was enough to spawn a gang of retweets and land the Weeknd on MTV News' most anticipated R&B albums of 2013 list. Now the breakout star joins the ranks of Beyoncé, Chris Brown, The-Dream and D'Angelo as this year's brightest.

What was your favorite track from the Weeknd's Trilogy? Let us know in the comments!