Post Malone has done a lot of traveling around when it comes to music in his career. From rap, pop, ballads, and more, and now he has converged on a genre that everyone feels like he was always supposed to be in: country music. 2024 might be the peak for country music’s popularity, so it makes sense that one of the highest musicians in the world dabbles in his own backyard of Texas-style country music. From drinking beers, going to church, shooting guns, and being a honky-tonky country boy, Post Malone touches on about every basic idea of country music and more. I will have to say his venture into this genre at times may seem a bit basic, but overall not too bad. He might lean a bit too hard into the typical country tropes of acoustic guitars, fiddles, and twangy vocals, but at the end of the day, they are fun and enjoyable. He is bringing a star-studded arrangement of new and old country stars. Most of the features I feel add a lot to the songs, like Hank Williams, Jelly Roll, and Brad Paisley. Their strong voices really help inject some life into the songs. The other features range from solid to somewhat okay. I think it's cool he was able to get so many to work with him, and I think it helps give the original release of the album a good pace going from feature to feature. His vocals really were meant for country with how he is able to yodel and strech his voice. He sounds fantastic and can hold his own against some of the big contenders in the country—not an easy feat for sure. The lyrical content for the most part is fun and sometimes insightful and shows some growth on the malones part. Like on “yours” and "losers," they have some heart to them about him being a father now and being an outcast. Maybe they are cheezy, but they have a lot of heart to them. The drums throughout this album have a nice punchy feel to them that gives all the songs a nice boomness to get you excited to listen to what's to come. Surprisingly, the standard 18-track and deluxe edition, with an additional 9 songs, doesn't really suffer from redundancy fatigue. It's a huge album that goes by relatively easily and is enjoyable. Nothing innovative musically is being done here, but it's still nice to see Post doing something different and on his own terms.
RATING: 8/10
NOTABLE TRACKS:
Finer Things
Won't Don't Belong To Me
Losers
Ain't How it Ends
Two Hearts