In 2016, Post Malone was basically a one-hit wonder artist with a first album just barely gaining popularity.
By May 2017, the University of Idaho struck gold with the rapper/ songwriter as he headlined the annual Finals Fest event.
Malone garnered a strong fan base and solid street credit in celebrity music circles. “Stoney,” Malone’s first album, carried hits like “Congratulations” and “White Iverson,” both moody and poppy. His popularity boomed — quick.
Since then, his success has only grown. With a second album hosting big names — 21 Savage, Nicki Minaj, Ty Dolla $ign, G-Easy, YG and Swae Lee — and the same strong lyrics, Malone’s success hasn’t slowed.
I don’t just credit Malone’s fame to the music alone. Now, celebrities are made out of social media beauty and influence. Malone breaks that mold — sort of.
Malone’s aesthetic is not what you would expect from a “rapper” — whatever that means these days. Dawning scrappy bangs and braids, a golden grill and face tattoos, the white rapper from Texas, actually named Austin Richard Post, is just 22 years old. This might be exactly what makes Malone so appealing to the masses — he’s a little weird, kitschy and seemingly perpetually chill.
In many of Malone’s interviews, he insists he isn’t a rapper. The brightest moments in the sophomore album happen when Malone strays completely from routine rap troupes, when his limited but wonderfully intriguing vocal range comes out to play.
The first track on the album pounces in with a snappy beat and Malone’s perfectly quivering vocals. Malone lays on the “sad” celebrity lifestyle thick in this one, but it’s a good opening beat to tune in to.
Tracks like “Rockstar” and “Psycho” rose to the top early in the album’s release.
Nicki Minaj takes over “Ball for Me,” but no one is going to complain over her strong vocals. Their styles push and pull to create a successful track.
“Over Now” and “Blame It On Me” prove to be two of the more underrated tracks on the album. These slower, thicker beats show off Malone’s vocal range in all the best ways.
Malone’s music style is that of hums, murmurs and wails. His album will make you bounce and sway, as he croons in what can only be described as a random mixture of all things rap, trap, R&B, hip-hop and pop.
In “Zack and Codeine,” Malone raps, “All these rap songs sound the same now.” Malone fell down that slippery slope with his first album, but “Beerbongs & Bentleys” pulls out all the stops to avoid the same fate.
I miss the tracks where Malone croons into the heart of tracks like “Feeling Whitney” and “I Fall Apart” in his first album. But, I can still find those vocals in his second album, with songs like “Stay.”
Perhaps the biggest drawback, yet greatest success of the album is Malone’s picking pieces and parts of an array of genres and mashing them together. He takes the sounds we know and love, dissects them and slaps them on a track. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Right now, it works.
“Beerbongs & Bentleys” topped the Billboard Top 200 for three straight weeks as of May 20. According to Billboard, most of that traffic is from streaming sites — it’s the kind of album you can listen to all day.
I liked my first Post Malone concert experience. But now, thanks to “Beerbongs & Bentleys,” I’m more than obsessed with attending another — this time somewhere other than UI’s SprinTurf.
Hailey Stewart can be reached at [email protected]