What If Post Malone Is Actually Good?

All along we assumed Post Malone was bad. What this article presupposes is: maybe he isn’t?

Post Malone—that face-tattooed, "always tired", Crocs-championing nu-rock rapper born Austin Richard Post—has been an internet punching bag ever since he hit mainstream success mid-2017.

The reason?

Well, I listed a bunch of reasons in the previous paragraph. Still, anti-Posty sentiment often veers into the unnecessarily cruel, especially when you remember he’s just 23 years of age.

Here’s a guy who was collectively volunteered by the online masses for Queer Eye. (Okay, that’s pretty funny.) A few months later, after surviving a life-threatening near-miss on a plane with blown-out wheels, he jumped on Twitter to find out people had been praying for a more fatal ending. (Okay, that’s pretty dark.)

"Can't believe how many people wished death on me on this website," he tweeted, though, that’s par for the course on the hell-mouth that is Twitter. Then, esteemed music publication Pitchfork took it to the next level, wondering if the universe itself was "trying to kill Post Malone", asking, "What unholy imbalance has his success caused, and to what lengths will the universe go to correct it?"

Even the Washington Post (y’know, with its tagline 'Democracy Dies in Darkness'), felt compelled to chime in a few months later with an all-time takedown of Posty Fest, describing the music produced by its godhead as "dead-eyed and ignorant, astonishingly dull in its materialism, an abandoned lot of creativity with absolutely no evidence of traffic in his cerebral cortex," before concluding "the bludgeoning witless imitation can’t help but feel like minstrelsy". Not even almost-dying won Post Malone a reprieve from the very American paper that basically shares his name.

So, that’s the widely agreed-upon line when it comes to Post Malone: he bad.

The thing is, the numbers say otherwise.

Last year, he was the second most streamed artist in the world on Spotify, while his album beerbongs and bentleys was the second most streamed record globally. Its lead singles "rockstar" and "psycho" were the third and fourth most streamed songs in the world. In Australia, "psycho" and "better now" (also off beerbongs & bentleys) came in third and fourth, while "I Fall Apart" off his previous record Stoney was the fifth most streamed song on Spotify. On Apple Music, "I Fall Apart" was the most-streamed song of the year. He also goes into the 2019 Grammys with four nominations, including a nod for Best Album. And just this week, his collaboration with Swae Lee from the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse soundtrack, "Sunflower", took out the #1 spot on the ARIA Singles Chart, while new single "Wow." debuted at #6, giving him seven Top 10 singles (and three #1s) in 13 months.

How can the biggest musical act of the moment (not called Drake) be so widely despised? And how long will the "joke" about Post Malone being 'the worst' last, considering he just tweeted fans, "I’m trying my best here," asking for support to keep him "mentally stable"?

I, like many, first discovered Post Malone through his 2015 single "White Iverson", released when he was just 19. It’s a slinky slow-jam that would set the template for his future hits (with an eye-rollingly bad title). A year later, he hopped on the 'Justin Bieber is good now' train with "Déjà Vu". It was as smooth as the best tunes on Bieber’s beloved album Purpose.

By the end of 2017, Post Malone would enjoy his biggest success to date with the nihilistic, droning "rockstar", and it’s at about that same time public sentiment turned violent. "rockstar" was everywhere, and loved by all the wrong people. Its posturing rang false, his performance was half-hearted, and it was engineered with seemingly maximum cynicism. But it was easy enough to leave playing in the background. It was the musical equivalent of Entourage.

That’s when I jumped, quickly, off the Post Malone express, and mostly avoided his later releases, except when subjected to them in public. ("Jackie Chan", not an official Post Malone single, would become the next most omnipresent song, and the nadir of not only his career, but Jackie Chan’s too.)

Here’s the thing: I recently saw Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which I loved, and in which Miles Morales sings along to Swae Lee’s trilling, summery chorus on "Sunflower". That was my first exposure to the tune, which I’d been steadily swerving for nearly two months prior. That is now one of my life’s biggest regrets.

"Sunflower" is legitimately fantastic, I had to concede, from its musical craft down to its actual execution. And it’s not even three minutes long! After my first few listens, with my Post Malone prejudice still strong, I tried to tell myself it was fantastic in spite of Posty; after all, there are few songs out there Swae Lee couldn’t save. I was lying to myself; when Swae is subbed out for the husky-voiced Malone, "Sunflower" is given the much-needed bottom to keep the airy refrain from floating away. Now I'm thinking: Why isn't "Sunflower", and actual Post Malone, a contender for Best Original Song at the Oscars?

Needless to say, I’ve been doing much soul-searching these past few weeks, relitigating "psycho" and "better now" too. And yes, lyrically, they’re practically diabolical. (Even early Childish Gambino would have passed on the couplet, "I'm rollin', rollin', rollin', rollin' with my brothers like it's Jonas".) Musically, however, they’ve got this spacious, open-air quality to them; you get why they’re being played in cars around the globe. Sonically, Post Malone is putting his timbre to good use, and the way he transitions from trap to lounge singer on "psycho", moaning, "whoaaaaa", is, ahem, beautiful?

(At this point, when my argument reads most ridiculously, I’d like to note that Post Malone also volunteered his time for the 2018 Netflix comedy special "Hilarity for Charity", where he sang "Return of the Mack" to aid Alzheimer’s research. So there.)

Now, none of this means we shouldn’t critique and interrogate artists, especially those guilty of cultural appropriation or cynically-produced mass content that smothers and/or steals from other, better, unsung musicians.

But, it’s January, and a time for positive resolutions. I’m planning on starting 2019 differently to 2018, in that I will not actively avoid Post Malone’s music anymore. Please let me know where they will hold the parade in tribute to my bravery and generosity.