Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion Friends
Words: Evan Gardner
October 27 2024
On his first country album, Malone’s selling good hangs, good vibes, and a taste you’ll quickly forget.
Post Malone is a surprising candidate for America’s most palatable man. For one, the 29-year-old has a face full of tats. For another, he started his music career in 2015 as a white rapper, complete with gold grills and hanging braids. (The backlash he faced was so severe that it drove him to drink.) But these days he’s genreless—and dueting with the stars.
This year, he’s appeared on the synth-y ballad that opened Taylor Swift’s stratospherically popular new album, as well as a sickly track on Beyonce’s first country album. (He sings the incredibly cringe line, “I’d like to be your Levi’s jeans.”) In August, he released a country album of his own, F-1 Trillion, and the tracklist reads more like a cool kid’s yearbook than anything else: 15 of the 18 songs are collaborations, featuring everyone from country legends like Dolly Parton to the hitmakers of today, including Jelly Roll. It’s like he’s going for popularity-by-association.
So, what’s making this man the hottest duet partner in town? It’s certainly not masterful lyrics. In F-1 Trillion, Malone manages to boil down contributions from Nashville’s greatest songwriters into generic, feigned poeticisms like “every thorn has its rose,” and “sometimes you’re broke, sometimes you’re ballin.”
But for a moment, in the middle of the record, we quickly catch a glimpse of something stronger–Malone slips into a streak of boot-tapping hits almost brawny enough to pull it all together. There’s a wheeling, beer-soaked singalong that topped the charts this summer; there’s a silly search for a fictional tool belt to cinch his broken heartstrings; and finally, there’s my personal favorite: a floating confessional from a man with nothing left.
Indeed, for this briefly forceful stretch, we finally hear a singer who feels meaningful emotions–almost. As it turns out, his newfound power was really just a loud admission of what we already knew: Post Malone is a pathological collaborator. He even admits it outright in the titles–“I Had Some Help,” “Guy For That,” and “What Don’t Belong to Me.” Anthems of self-reliance.
Really, his run just screams his dirty little secret: there’s nothing original about Post Malone–but that, in a nutshell, is precisely his appeal. While Malone’s malleable malaise might have alienated him from the industry of old, today it puts his finger right on the pulse of the American public. These days, we’d rather have good vibes than anything substantial– and Posty knows it. His records keep winning–F-1 Trillion debuted at 31.7 million streams–because he, like his proud partner Bud Light, trusts that a ubiquitously inoffensive flavor is the best way to win people over in this country.
Or, as he sings in “Never Love You Again,” he knows that all we want is to be sold “a glass of that forget me”--so long as it gives us a buzz.
All in all, then, F-1 Trillion leaves Malone sounding less like a tried-and-true country crooner, and more like a maestro of marketing: as he told comedian Theo Von on his podcast “This Past Weekend,” these songs are all about “finding a tag.” And Malone isn’t alone in this, either–the late August release of F-1 Trillion came alongside Sabrina Carpenter spinning her steamy slogan “that me espresso” into a high-end ice cream campaign, Chappell Roan turning “Good Luck Babe!” into the soundtrack of the U.S. Open, and Charli XCX flipping Brat–an album turned mantra turned movement–into an everything campaign. The summer of the sales pitch was on.
But I’ll be honest: I bought it. I waited in line when Sabrina broke Ticketmaster. I googled Chappell Roan’s latest, raciest costume. And I’m one of the millions of consumers who just can’t avoid the joyously hollow collabs of Post Malone.
So when it comes to Malone & Co., I can’t quite describe why I’m still listening; but, in true Malonian fashion, I’ll try in someone else’s words instead:
As Posty himself sings it, playing this album is like “slamming a revolving door”--it’s a fun ride that quickly gets you nowhere, and keeps you coming back for more.
This year, he’s appeared on the synth-y ballad that opened Taylor Swift’s stratospherically popular new album, as well as a sickly track on Beyonce’s first country album. (He sings the incredibly cringe line, “I’d like to be your Levi’s jeans.”) In August, he released a country album of his own, F-1 Trillion, and the tracklist reads more like a cool kid’s yearbook than anything else: 15 of the 18 songs are collaborations, featuring everyone from country legends like Dolly Parton to the hitmakers of today, including Jelly Roll. It’s like he’s going for popularity-by-association.
So, what’s making this man the hottest duet partner in town? It’s certainly not masterful lyrics. In F-1 Trillion, Malone manages to boil down contributions from Nashville’s greatest songwriters into generic, feigned poeticisms like “every thorn has its rose,” and “sometimes you’re broke, sometimes you’re ballin.”
But for a moment, in the middle of the record, we quickly catch a glimpse of something stronger–Malone slips into a streak of boot-tapping hits almost brawny enough to pull it all together. There’s a wheeling, beer-soaked singalong that topped the charts this summer; there’s a silly search for a fictional tool belt to cinch his broken heartstrings; and finally, there’s my personal favorite: a floating confessional from a man with nothing left.
Indeed, for this briefly forceful stretch, we finally hear a singer who feels meaningful emotions–almost. As it turns out, his newfound power was really just a loud admission of what we already knew: Post Malone is a pathological collaborator. He even admits it outright in the titles–“I Had Some Help,” “Guy For That,” and “What Don’t Belong to Me.” Anthems of self-reliance.
Really, his run just screams his dirty little secret: there’s nothing original about Post Malone–but that, in a nutshell, is precisely his appeal. While Malone’s malleable malaise might have alienated him from the industry of old, today it puts his finger right on the pulse of the American public. These days, we’d rather have good vibes than anything substantial– and Posty knows it. His records keep winning–F-1 Trillion debuted at 31.7 million streams–because he, like his proud partner Bud Light, trusts that a ubiquitously inoffensive flavor is the best way to win people over in this country.
Or, as he sings in “Never Love You Again,” he knows that all we want is to be sold “a glass of that forget me”--so long as it gives us a buzz.
All in all, then, F-1 Trillion leaves Malone sounding less like a tried-and-true country crooner, and more like a maestro of marketing: as he told comedian Theo Von on his podcast “This Past Weekend,” these songs are all about “finding a tag.” And Malone isn’t alone in this, either–the late August release of F-1 Trillion came alongside Sabrina Carpenter spinning her steamy slogan “that me espresso” into a high-end ice cream campaign, Chappell Roan turning “Good Luck Babe!” into the soundtrack of the U.S. Open, and Charli XCX flipping Brat–an album turned mantra turned movement–into an everything campaign. The summer of the sales pitch was on.
But I’ll be honest: I bought it. I waited in line when Sabrina broke Ticketmaster. I googled Chappell Roan’s latest, raciest costume. And I’m one of the millions of consumers who just can’t avoid the joyously hollow collabs of Post Malone.
So when it comes to Malone & Co., I can’t quite describe why I’m still listening; but, in true Malonian fashion, I’ll try in someone else’s words instead:
As Posty himself sings it, playing this album is like “slamming a revolving door”--it’s a fun ride that quickly gets you nowhere, and keeps you coming back for more.