Let’s accept that there are going to be bros like Post Malone who will inevitably listen to someone like Post Malone. So let’s ignore the part of the critical apparatus that wants something to hate on because it allows for public self-flagellation re: America’s collective guilt about everything white. I’ll never listen to Beerbongs & Bentleys beyond the two times I suffered through it to write this, but I understand the benefits of being the bro who made it. It all adds up to inevitability: If you were Post, you’d probably drop this shitty derivative but very-of-the-moment album too. I’m sure there’s a hypothetical bro out there who COULD listen to Future instead of Post, but Super Fyutch is gonna be fine. With that in mind, it’s hard for me to believe that his very presence hurts the melodic mainstream side of hip-hop when he’s basically just copying what’s hot and doing it wrong.
Its signifiers and sonic trademarks are just about the only game left in town for mainstream music. Beyond that, is Post Malone even a rapper? Even calling him that feels like a concession that outside of pop, the only way to market a male act for mainstream success through rap. Blaming Post’s audience for his success is like blaming white girls for Spotify’s endless stream of faceless EDM pop fly-by-nights. Hard rock outside of the spheres of extreme metal has calcified and even the untrendiest of listeners knows it-ain’t nobody trying to hear that shit, even as everyone wants singers that reflect their identity.
I’m going to wager the answer is “No” for all of the above. Would Post Malone be any better if instead of 808 hi hat rolls and woozy synths, he substituted standard rock drumming? Would black music be better? Would his spot go to a black artist? Would he get as many streams? Instead, here’s a thought experiment: Where would Post Malone be if you removed hip-hop from his equation? Bitching about it does nothing to stop it. Guys like Post Malone are going to listen to someone like Post Malone and there’s a hell of a lot of people like that in America. Yes, he’s the perfect target for performative outrage-just look at his asshole face-but the success of someone like him is also completely inevitable. He’s a middling hack who clearly owes his position to the fact that a large number of white Americans want to listen to white Americans, and that needs to be discussed and addressed, but the compulsion to make his success into proxy war for American politics isn’t a helpful one. Even if the guy occasionally stumbles or buys his way into a good song, it’s going to be unpalatable to virtually everyone reading this blog.īut here’s the rub: You’re also not going to convince me that Post Malone is a cancerous reflection of everything that’s wrong with America, either. To recap what you can find literally anywhere else on the Internet: It’s a derivative take on the singing-rap style perfected by names like Future, Ty Dolla $ign, and Rae Sremmurd, grafted onto the typical white bro aesthetic promulgated by meat and potatoes rock bands like Nickelback or Creed. You’ve got a better chance of convincing me that Kanye West’s Twitter antics are a net positive for the universe than convincing me that Post Malone’s Beerbongs & Bentleys is any good. Son Raw listened to Post rap so you don’t have to go through that.
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