Every Single Album - F-1 Trillion | Every Single Album: Post Malone

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Nora and Nathan talk about the news and surprises that came out of Taylor Swift's final slate of European shows in London (1:00). Then they turn to Post Malone's first foray into country music: F-1 Trillion. They discuss how the rapper came to the genre (15:29), how seemingly every big name in country has a feature on this album (36:32), and their favorite and least favorite tracks on the record (55:26). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys, your boy Johnny Bananas here. The Challenge Season 40 Battle of the Eras is finally upon us. I'll be covering every episode with all your favorite challengers on my podcast, death taxes and bananas on the Ringer Reality TV podcast feed, and on the brand new Ringer Reality TV YouTube channel, where you can find full video episodes all season long. So buckle up, come along with me as we see who will be crowned winner of the Challenge Season 40 Battle of the Eras.

Follow Ringer Reality TV on Spotify and subscribe to us on YouTube. Welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Prenziotti and as always I am joined by Nathan Hubbard. Nathan, are you ready to talk about Post Malone? Jet lag is a choice. Yes. Jet lag is a choice. Post Malone's F1 trillion is I suppose also a choice.

But it is a choice that we have made for the topic of this very podcast. However, before we get into that, Nathan is jet-lacked because he was in London, seeing Taylor Swift. Tell us all about it, please. Well, first of all, my condolences to the reputation clowns, we tried to tell you it wasn't happening yet because we're still in the middle of an album cycle that matters and because there are still more dates to do

and because it's the third week of August and on and on and on. but it was a pretty special weekend in London, not just because Taylor's ending the international leg of the tour, but like everybody's in London, Nora, Doolipa all over London. Harry Stiles, all over London. Okay, you just named two Brits. Well, I don't know that that's their full-time residence.

The Hymn Girls. Jack Antenoff. It's like a demois where it's like spotted Joe Biden in D.C., and then the response is like likely plays. for him to be. Gracie Abrams and Paul Mesco just gallivanting through the streets of Mayfair. It really, everyone really descended on the city. And I have to say London is having just a moment. I'm fortunate enough to get there a lot. But it really beautiful weather weekend, everyone out and about unbelievable amount of business generated in the city. And I know that's something that you read headlines on.

you saw it in Edinburgh, but like London, big city. Like when the Super Bowl comes to New York, you don't necessarily know that the Super Bowl's in town unless you're in a few places. Any other city, like when the Super Bowl's there, it's just overwhelming. Business owners, Uber drivers. I mean, I went to brunch on Saturday, and the guy said it was a two-hour wait. And he said, I just have to tell you half the people here are here for Taylor Swift. Like half of our business this weekend is Taylor Swift. And Uber drivers saying it just was crazy.

It just, it is a phenomenon. And the show itself that I went to, I went on Saturday night, Suki Waterhouse opened, which was terrific. She floated. She was fantastic. Then Paramore did the Robert Pattinson shoutout, or I should say, Mr. Waterhouse shout out and played decode, which is in the movies.

It was so good. Yeah, I mean, in the Twilight movies. and that made its way around and then she did I did something bad which she hadn't played on the whole tour and that got everybody clowning for reputation

because she just didn't even mash it up she just did it and she was fired up and bouncing up and down and doing the ratat da tat tat and she was it was the most energetic part

of the night by far and listen I thought the show was terrific she was great I think she's ready for a break She didn't look like it on stage. I just think her boyfriend's back in America. She's been doing show after show, after show, after show.

She got up a week after a terrorist threat that, again, she still has not said a word about. That's how serious this thing was in front of 92,000 people every single night and walked out there by herself as vulnerable as she could be. And fortunately, it looks like all these shows went off without a hitch. The security was great. The crowds were great. The vibe and the energy was great.

But they're just, I mean, you remember how sassy she was in L.A. When she was filming that night. All three of us. A very sassy lady that Taylor Allison. You and I, yeah. She was in full sass mode there. Here she was delivering the show. I don't remember if it was from Saturday, but Cam posted one of the I can do it with a

broken heart intro videos from one of this weekends. And she's just like, sticking her tongue out. And that was the silly, like, that is always a hammy moment. Yeah. That was the hammiest

I've ever seen that moment. Yeah. I think she's ready for a break. And I think she's been, I think the Vienna stuff only underlined that. And the whole... The tour's only been going

for two years. Yeah, exactly. But she's visiting with the openers and she visited with the families of the victims of that stabbing. She visited, you know, she's... I saw,

her motorcade passed by on Saturday night as we were getting back towards Mayfair and close to, you know, that sort of part of town, her motorcade flew by us. There was a chatter that she might be going out that night because she didn't play on Sunday. But she didn't go out that night. And so I think she's tired. She's got a lot going on at the moment. She's got a lot going on at the moment. But I will say apologies to their reputation clowns. I do think what you got on the last night was a lot of fun. We're just recording this an hour after she did it. She brought out she did Florida for you, Nora. Florida. Well, Florence had been seen in London as well, by the way. And so there was a sense that this was coming, but what nobody understood is that she was

going to actually bring her up and do choreography and moving stage pieces and lights to the whole thing and integrated into the tortured poet set, which she did. And so all of the clowns who saw the flashing red and green lights up on the arch at Wembley on the off night on Sunday and thought, oh, those are the lights for reputation. It turns out that was her rehearsing for the Florence and the Machine song. I mean, look, at least she was rehearsed, people clocked that she was rehearsing something new. It's closer than some of the theories. Yeah.

I do want to point out that you have just mentioned another Brit. was in London. I get your central point that a lot of people came to this show and it was a big to do. That's very fabulous. Damn it. However, four out of the five people that you've mentioned didn't have to come very far.

De Hime Girls. Gracie. That's three. Okay. So it was several. Paul Meskell does not live in London. He's Irish. And like a bunch of Los Angeles.

Yeah. Sounds like a fun bunch, frankly. Yeah, look, they all descended. Jack just did the getaway car. And the Hubbard girls were there. My biggest stars of the night. They were. They had a good time.

It was a great weekend. Great way for her to close this show. And now what she does from here is going to be interesting, Nora. Trump doing the AI Taylor stuff last week and putting that online. This is a human being who is very protective of her copyrights, including her name, image and likeness. And the suggestion that she had endorsed him on a public social platform is going to be an interesting moment.

It could be a very interesting test of free speech and the intersection of free speech and AI and people's ownership of their name and likeness. And I'm not sure that that chapter is closed just yet. Well, as someone who I cohabitate with a lawyer, and as soon as that happened, ran straight to him and went, who can sue who? who over this and was told that not only could she pursue whatever she could pursue, there's some other angles to like election fraud and voter law and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So there's a lot of people who could act based on that stuff because it has the ability to actually

matter. So I am also very curious to see if someone will do something about that. But, you know, if who's afraid of little old me, Taylor wants to put on her sue in hat? Yeah. I'll be interested to see what shakes out. The macro-level feeling that I had being at that show, and I've seen it a lot now. I was really emotional for a couple reasons. One is like I was there with my daughters and whatever.

But it was really because we're not going to see anything like this. Maybe again in our lifetimes. And that is not hyperbole. Like, there may be, you know, it's maybe the Beatles, Elvis and Michael Jackson who've ever been this big. and 92,000 people in a stadium, you know, to the point where Haley Williams can replicate the Freddie Mercury thing from Wembley because there's that many people there and the call and response from how, like it's just a once maybe, maybe once in a generation phenomenon. And that's what I said to my girls. I was like, just take this in because you may not ever

see something like this again, certainly not with the, you know, positivity and the, and the, you know, the friendly, subdued nature, the community part of what happens at these shows, the next huge star is going to be something different. But she's going to take some time at some point. It just is inevitable. And I think the reason that reputation isn't out now is that it will allow her to be present in people's lives

in an era where you've got to be always on without having to be on and where she can actually go have a life that she has given up for the most part since COVID and just because of the prolific nature of her creation. So this is, I said it on a couple of social platforms, but it's just like if you haven't seen it and you can,

you're fortunate enough to be able to afford to go travel, you should do it because you just may not see anything like this in your lifetime again. And I also think, look like, and if you're not, that's why the movie's so special. And that's why even just the way that people follow the tour, week after week and in a lot of cases, day after day is just so much fun. Like the community that has sprung up around Taylor Swift in general, obviously, is really

special and we're so lucky to be a part of that. But around the tour in particular is it's not something to take for granted and it's not something to get used to. I will say, just on your comment on reputation, I agree with you that it's a helpful reframe for me to think about the fact that that is an album that. she'll want to give its due to and its time to and its spotlight to. Because as you said, when she did, I did something bad, huge moment, really exciting, really going for it. Even the getaway car with Jack.

Big reaction, big song. The reputation era of this tour, I think the more iterations of it I see and follow online, the reputation part really feels like a high point. maybe the high point. And I don't know. I just, I'm, I'm hopeful that what this means, what the fact that we don't have reputation Taylor's version yet means, is that it's going to get more of a red Taylor's version treatment than a speak now Taylor's version treatment. And that would be exciting as a reputation stand. I think you're right. And there are some things, I mean, there are some things from the tour that you notice. Like, but Daddy, I love him and I can do with the broken heart are huge hits. And they might be the two big. biggest songs from that album. Like, they bring more energy than you think. I'm saying all this because there's other moments in the show where it's like style, right, at the start of the 1989 piece, it totally stands out.

The whole reputation set brings that same kind of energy and people have the same interaction. And I think you're right, it's probably been even more deeply embedded into people's hearts and minds because of the tour because it is an important part of the Erez tour energy. I also wonder, last point on this, because this literally just popped into my head, I wonder

if she's renegotiating a home for that tour video. Well, I don't know. Because it's still off, I think. And that, I mean, the reputation tour movie is like, yeah, the

the Ares Tour movie kind of fills that whole. But the reputation tour movie is really, really, really good. And I know a lot of people myself included who would be really happy to have that back available somewhere where I can just press play if I need to clean my living room. And I wonder if as part of that will get an answer as to where that's going to live on a longer term. Well, you know, we've talked about this. We talked about this when the Ares Tour doc came out the first time. I don't think we've seen the last of footage from this tour.

And so it wouldn't surprise me if maybe in conjunction with something else that we may or may not get from this tour, I think we're going to get something. I don't know anything, but it seems, you know, there's enough, there's enough. Okay. Visual evidence online of people being followed with camera. And why wouldn't they? I mean, it's a fascinating story to understand how she's actually. pulled this off. It would be stunning if they don't actually document the highest grossing tour

of all time behind the scenes. Behind the scenes of it, perhaps. Like how she actually did this. As opposed to just the movie. So I don't know when it comes out. I don't know what it looks like. I don't know what form. But I mean, there's got to be footage. And so at some point, we're going to get some insight into that, I'm sure. Okay. Well, Nathan started getting cryptic. So I'm going to turn us to our regularly scheduled programming unless you have any final thoughts from London, from the last international leg of the era's tour. Anything else? Let's go. All right, let's do it. So here's what else we have today. Back in 2015, Austin Post Malone tweeted, and he was a rapper at the time, always sort of a genre fluid person, but I think it was safe to qualify dear person.

Posty as a rapper at the time. Tweeted something along the lines of, when I turn 30, I'm going to make a country folk album. He's not 30 yet, but Post Malone's 29th birthday was July 4th. So a little bit ahead of schedule last week, Post Malone released F1 trillion, which is that long-anticipated foray into country. And we're going to break it down.

Nathan, how has how has, How has F1 trillion been sitting with you these first few days? I did not really understand Post Malone as an artist because I like, I, you know, does anyone understand Post Malone? The auto tune stuff, okay. I've been fucking holes and popping pillies, man, I feel just like a rock star. You know, I just wasn't, I don't know that rock star, like it got played so much. that it kind of became one of those things that it started to hurt my ears to listen,

but it showed up in all kinds of cultural moments. I guess I just was late to post Malone. And then, if we're being honest, the last two albums have not been great in terms of their reception by the fan base. It has not been full of hits in the way that the others were. And so to me, hearing that he was doing a country album potentially, and there was a lot of rumors about him spent a lot of time in national, and the songwriting community there

that I do some work with was talking about how they were spending time with him. We saw him on the Beyonce record, we saw him on the Taylor record, and I don't know, there was a piece of me that thought, okay, this is just going to be kind of cosplay. And I have to tell you, I think this album is fantastic.

I'm not sure that it breaks incredible ground in country. There are no surprises in the bridges or moments where, you know, moments where, oh, I didn't expect that. But the whole album is something that you didn't expect because it is rich with moments from country stars old and new and controversial and traditional. It follows so many of the standard country tropes. But man, is it listenable? Almost from start to finish. It's really good. And I had a sense that maybe this was the case, but it in general. a real conversation around album of the year back into the forefront, because this thing's going

to get nominated. And the play between it and Beyonce is interesting to me, both of them who have sort of grafted themselves and poured themselves into countries and art form and put out two very different interpretations of it. It's a fascinating work that I think is going to drive a lot of the conversation in this last third of the year around music that came out. out in 2024. I imagine we'll talk a little bit more about the Grammy's question, which to me is not so much interesting just as an examination of who's going to walk away that night with more or less hardware. But it's a pretty interesting vector into a lot of the sort of, you know, there's some sort of authorship questions and how much credit do you give someone just for making something

good versus sort of pushing a needle in a certain way and what do you want from an album? And I think the fact that there are these two big records from stars who were best known in other genres, though both of whom had sort of straddled various genre lines before, just going in their own way as into the center of country. is going to be an interesting reflection of how people sort of received those two albums. You're putting your hand up. Talk to me. Okay. I need to tell you something. Yes. There is behind the scenes footage, I guess, of Taylor Swift.

And it is coming out tonight in 30 minutes while we're still going to be recording this podcast. Yeah. So she's just announced that the I Can Do It With the Broken Heart video is coming. Are you on Twitter right now? Yes. and that there are a bunch of backstage clips around it. So I don't know what that means. A music video?

I think so. Yeah. It's a music video that's going to be a back, like, that we'll have backstage footage of... Exactly. Now, I imagine this is not the end of the backstage footage that we might see over time, but I find it hilarious that once again,

anytime we put a marker down, 20 minutes later, She changes the game on this. Right after we said there will be stuff. Here it is. This woman. Back to your regularly scheduled post-Malone conversation. Okay, well, we'll have to, I don't know what we're going to do.

Are we going to just, maybe we'll just like jump in. We'll watch it live. We'll do it at the end of this episode. I don't know. That's a great idea. Okay. We'll figure it out. But in the meantime, back to our dear post-Malone.

Interested in the Grammy's discussion and how that's going to play into the rest of this conversation. But let's kick it off. Let's talk about biggest hit, which I think has a clear answer. I think this is, I had some help all the way. That's the song that to me, another person who had all of those questions that you laid out at the top of like, post Malone doing a country album, what is this going to be like? And is this going to work? I think one of the reasons this is a successful album is because they hit it off the top with

a song that was like, you know what? ask your questions about the number of features, about whether there's sort of like a culture vulture thing going on here, like whatever. Here is a song off the top that is kind of undeniable and feels huge, which I think I had had some help has been and probably will continue to be. Yeah. I mean, it's already his 21st most streamed song.

it is streaming twice as much as Fortnite is on a daily basis right now. It is going to get to a billion streams pretty darn quickly here, and it is the biggest song on the album, for sure. And it's terrific. Let's be honest. It's great. It's extraordinarily well-written. Yeah, we can talk about this guy as an artist who insists that he's a genre bender,

Not that he like changes genres, but the genre doesn't matter. And it's, you know, a convenient argument to make when you've been accused of culture, vulture stuff. But I do think that this song is just a reflect. It just has everything that you, it's drinking, it's funny. He's got, you know, everybody from Charlie Hansom to Ashley Goreley writing on this song. but it just, it checks every single box, and it's why, in a lot of ways, I still think, you know, we can talk about what songs of the summer are, but this one is in the top three songs of the

summer. And it also, and I don't know that I could have put my finger on this before listening to the whole album. It needs, this song needs Post Malone to be as good as it is. I think when, because I think we talked about this when we did The Man episode, and we hadn't heard the album, but we'd seen the whole track list. And, you know, there's 14 featured artists on side one of this. And I think you said, like, you know, I wonder if post Malone is going to end up feeling a little bit superfluous to, and I'm paraphrasing, so tell me if I'm putting words in your mouth here, but like, is he going to come out of this feeling a little bit external

to his own record? And to me, the way in which he doesn't is, like, Post Malone, Post Malone is a very charming person. Like there's a reason that Post Malone... It's a big part of his whole vibe. Right. And there's a musical reason that he is the one person who got to be part of the Beyonce record, tortured poets,

have his own huge moment, perform at the Super Bowl, be in the J-Lo thing, as I love to bring up. But beyond the musical reason for that, I think the bigger reason is people really like Post-Malone. People really like hanging out with Post Malone. And maybe that seems like, you know, a sort of a convenient thing for a star like

Beyonce or Taylor Swift to pull in this other sort of massively successful person. But I will tell you, even at the Super Bowl, when he sang America Beautiful. He was walking around before the game. And Post Malone is just like standing in the tunnels drinking a beer with a bunch of security people. Yeah. And I don't know what that is, but like it's something. And I saw him at a Rams Cowboys game doing the same thing. He's just like he has a magnetism that's sort of like, you know, he's a little bit of a, it's sort of like a cheeky, I hesitate to say bad boy because it doesn't feel quite that.

Like it's, it's more charming than that. Yeah, but you'd expect, you'd expect more of an edge for the way that he looks. Let's just be honest. Like he's covered in face tattoos. He's got the hair. He's got the teeth. Like, you would expect a harder facade. And the humility and sort of low ego way in which he presents himself at 29 years old is almost jarring in the opposite way that you'd expect.

And so it makes it extremely relatable. Yes. Yes. And all of the stories about how Charlie Hanson brought him to Nashville and integrate. and integrated him into the scene there in a way that wasn't like, hey, I'm doing a country record, but brought him into bars where he just sat and had beers and then went back to people's houses at 2 a.m. and wrote

and allowed his artistry to come forward in a natural way is the story of this album, I think. And again, as we juxtaposed it against Beyonce, and it's not one record versus the other, it's just a totally different approach with different purposes but still the same thing of, you know, Beyonce giving a history lesson from the outside and creating a piece of art that people respond to about whether they'll accept it. And then Post basically doing the work to get himself ingratiated into what has historically

been a very small circle scene in Nashville. It takes a lot to sort of warm your way into it. And then build an album out from. the center instead of Beyonce's outside in approach. These two things together tell a very interesting cultural story of this town and the music scene.

Well, and I think there is something to be said for the way that Post Malone went about making this album that was effective and clearly getting a lot of people on board, a lot of people to co-sign. And I

don't think any of that is invalid in and of itself. I do think I want to give him credit for being a good dude because it seems like he deserves that. I do think there's something in the juxtaposition of he showed so much humility in how he approached Nashville coming as a contrast to Cowboy Carter that I look at in a way that's a little bit of scantz because I will say there are a lot of big names who contributed to this album. basically all of them are white. And I think there can be something valid in Post Malone being someone who is good at creating consensus, is good at forming relationships, is really easy for, you know, puts people at ease working with him, where we can also take a step back and say, like, that as indictment

of the Beyonce country record never really. being embraced by Nashville that is in and of itself a little bit of proof positive of the Cowboy Carter idea which is not Post Malone's fault I just I think there's a little bit of there's a little bit of complexity there

and I think a couple of things can be true at the same time but I do think I do think his personality and the way that people respond to him and that has to do with collaborators but it also has to do with listeners ended up being a bigger part of this than I anticipated it being. And on a song like I had some help, what I think he does, you know, Morgan Wallen could sing that song and it would

probably be a huge hit. But it wouldn't be as fun. And like the music video wouldn't be as fun. The music video where Post Malone is like being very silly and he's in a bar and he's like doing karaoke and he's wiggling around. There's a cheekiness and a wink and a silliness that I think gives some of these songs a real charm that when we talk to each other about like, okay, this song's good, but if it had been just a Blake Shelton song or just a Chris Stapleton song, would we really lose anything? I have different answers for different songs on that, but I think on a lot of the best songs on this record,

the answer is yes, because what you lose is just like, Post Malone kind of being a vibe. And I mostly think I had some help as a big hit song because it's a big hit song, and that has to do with how it was written. But I do think that there is like, I don't know, the guy who's drinking beers with the people in the tunnel,

I feel his presence. Yeah. And that, I think, is part of why it works. well, does anything else compete with this song for you? I mean, the other two singles, Pour Me a Drink, which is the Blake Shelton song and Guy for that with Luke Combs. Luke Combs does a lot of writing on this record, actually. A lot of writing.

A lot of people did a lot of writing. Yeah, it's pretty impressive. And it just seems like on a song-for-song basis that guy for that, even though it hadn't streamed as much, came out later, but that right now it seems to be the preferred, on a day-to-day basis, it's getting more streams than, you know,

it's the second most streamed album on the song on the album, and it's getting considerably more than pour me a drink, although they're both doing over a million and a half a day, basically. So is there anything else on here that, from a biggest song standpoint, I thought on the Billy record, you know where I stood, I thought Birds of a Feather was going to be bigger than lunch, and okay, I think maybe I got that one right. I'm not sure that there's another one sitting on this album,

even though I think top to bottom it's pretty darn good. I'm not sure there's a song on here that's going to overtake. I had some help, do you? I do not. I can tell you, I can give you a list of other songs, and I will that I really like. I also think, and I'd be curious what you, I'd be curious to know more about the timing of when certain decisions were made,

But I think I wonder if, and I guess you could say this about Cowboy Carter too, I wonder if Post Malone took a little bit of a lesson from the two women whose albums

he contributed to earlier this spring and summer because the rollout of this feels a lot like tortured poets. How so?

A few hours after the release, we learn There's a double album. There's a whole side B. There's a bunch more stuff. All in all, I believe there's 27 songs here. And I think having gone through the tortured poets experience, and to a lesser extent, Cowboy Carter, because some of the ways that you got to the number of the track list there had to do more with the sketches and the interstitials and all of that. but particularly having had the experience of covering tortured poets, I think I was a little bit more ready to just go through and be like, okay, that one's not my favorite, but whatever.

I don't think it's detrimental to the record. Like moving on, find the stuff that you really like. And there's a lot of it. Yeah. But he seems really clearly to be taking the flood the zone more is more. We're putting these out for streaming services. we're putting these songs out to go on playlists approach, then it seems as though he's going for,

let's create a concise, curated album that has a thesis and an arc. Yeah. Yeah. And to that extent, the cosplay thing is maybe a reasonable arrow to throw. The difference, I guess, is that each song stays interesting because of the feature, right? I mean, on the main record, what are there, four songs that don't have a feature?

Three. Three. Three, right? One of them's about his daughter. Three and two of them are not good. Okay. Wow, we might have an argument about this. We might have a real argument about this.

Okay, we'll see. Three and two of them are not good. Interesting. I do think the second album is longbed, as it's called. It's more stripped down. It's acoustic. It's less power. country. It sounds like it could be a Lyle Lovett album to me. And including the very last song,

the Texas song, it just feels like it's, that's right, you're not from Texas, but I love it. That's right. That's right. Make a long stop. But I'm not sure that it was intended to be anything other than some outros of the writing sessions that he did. And clearly those songs, I don't think, are as strong as the ones that he puts from top to bottom. They feel smaller. Yeah. They feel smaller.

Like, they don't operate on quite the same, you know, the same scale. And maybe that's because they're not doing that power country style as much. I will say, I think there's enough in there as proof of concept that he didn't necessarily need

all of those collaborators. That's not to say that they didn't add something. Well, he better not. He's going to go tour it, right? Right. He's going to go play sheds, uh,

amphitheaters across outdoor amphitheaters with this thing. And so he better not need, I mean, nose dive, I'm not exactly sure how he's going to do it without Lainey Wilson, but sometimes you fall in, but they still most die. Or have the heart.

I'm not sure how you do that without Dally Barton. Right. But I, to your point, like I had some help he can do on his own and wrong ones. I got cold dreams. Tim McGraw adds interesting vocals. Like all the vocal performances across these features are interesting,

but probably not required for the most part. But I even think like the first three songs, I was sort of expecting or at least primed to come away going like, uh, yeah, you know, if this is the country tune equivalent, of like a rap battle and post Malone and the featured artist are going head to head here. I was expecting him to take a lot more else than I thought that he did. And particularly because the album starts with wrong ones and with finer things. And I had some help, I think fits into this to an extent where like they do a good job of starting it off in this place of like,

you know, the deer blind with a diamond ring, like that sort of that nexus of post Malone, who post Malone is with this country lifestyle and kind of like fitting those things in a way where it feels true to him. I found that very funny and silly and charming. And I think because he didn't get like blown out of the water vocally, then I come away from those first three songs going. Post Malone gave me more in terms of an attitude and a character that I'm interested in hearing an album from than Tim McGrath did, than Hank Williams Jr. did. Well, Hank is Hank. I'm not sure I agree with you on the Hank part, but I do understand your point. And I think I find his voice really compelling on this record. Like the chain smoking is not going to work out well in the long run. But when he gets into his growl at those higher registers of his voice, it really, I mean, it is really compelling. But it's also like The other thing that's compelling to me though Is like the character

Yeah Because it's not that you know I think Hank like Hey William Jr. can probably out sing And probably did out sing Post Malone On finer things on a literal level Yeah But there's something about what they're doing

Where like I do find it kind of cheekily charming To hear Post Malone talking about the waggy on his grill Yeah And it's enough different Where I just His contribution feels essential In a way that to me Within the first three songs of the album

Kind of checks off the big question I have He sort of seamlessly integrates himself It feels authentic is the point You're making I think And there are There are lots of long outros Or guitar noodling at the end of the songs There are guitar licks that come in

On the four beat before verses There are big explosive snare sounds. There's like the background little bits of fiddle and pedal steel and mandolin, like lyrics that are boats and trains and drinking

and trucks and hunting and God, all of it. Like all of the tricks in the country book are here. But you're right that it doesn't feel manufactured. It works probably because number one,

understanding him as an artist means he is defiantly, even for his humility through his whole career, refused to accept a genre. And in fact, insisted that at this point, the most creative parts of music are people who are blending those genres instead of just sort of reinventing the wheel, given how many times the same sets of chords have been used over and over and over again since basically the advent of rock in the 50s, right? So that what's interesting is the blending and the swirling of all these different genres. But this doesn't feel like a swirling of genres, to your point. It just, it feels like it's his personality and that it's real.

I don't know. I believe him. There are dozens and dozens of songs that sound just like these songs. Yeah. And that hit the same, you know, hit the same beats of being big and sing-alongy and fun. This was the radio, you know, when I was in college, like that was sort of the peak era of, you know, that real like super muscular bro country. Right. Right. All of that sounds like this. I've listened to so many songs that sound like these songs. Yeah. But these songs actually do

make themselves a little bit different because Post Malone is singing them. Well, remember, most of those big country stars that you didn't write their own songs. Right. The people who wrote these ones wrote them. Yes. But I think he did write, do some of this writing. And what those country stars are great at that you're referencing

is selling it and making it feel authentic. And you believe, I just, I believe post Malone here. That's the most shocking thing for me about this record is I bought it. From the first song, like you said, from wrong ones. I was like, wow. This is a country outlaw song.

basically. And I buy it. It's a Post Malone kind of outlaw. Like, I don't, I don't know that I think Tim pulled off saying that he's got country money, but Post Malone saying, I've got fuck you money. Like, I got fuck you money girl. It works. And he's not trying to, like, a song that I didn't think worked as well. And I think the idea of him collaborating with Jelly Roll is really cool because they both have

that story of being sort of rappers first and then making a similar. You didn't buy losers. I didn't buy losers because he didn't make being losers sound fun. Well, he made it sound welcoming. Yeah, or sort of like empowering somehow. But like to me, and maybe I am sort of projecting a character here, but it's a character whose album I really want to hear and listen to. The character that Post Malone is putting on in wrong ones, in finer things, and I had some help.

and a lot of these songs and a lot of the ones that I think are effective is different from that guy. And that's why, you know, I thought they sounded good together, but it didn't work for me

because it just felt like a different, a different identity, a different person, a different point of view that I'm less interested in hearing from Post Malone or that feels less true to Post Malone.

I think there are a couple other examples of that on here, particularly when things get a little bit more to the schmalt side. Okay. So now I know which of the three songs or which of the two songs you did not like that, that, yeah, aren't future. No, there's three. There's three. There's one I think is good. There's one I think is fine. There's one I think is unconscionable. And I understand now,

I think when you went to Schmaltze, that was the key. Are there songs that you think are the best songs on this album that aren't some of the ones you've been talking about? I had some help is the best song. I had some help is pretty squarely the best song. I think the other contender is, I mean, I think they got the singles right. Yep. I think I like pour me a drink a little bit more than Guy for that. Somebody pour me a drink. I think because it's sort of dumber, like, there's something about stupid Blake Shelton where I'm like, this is funny.

Yeah. But they're both really good. I do really, I really like finer things. I love the Dolly Parton song. I just think that's very silly. Does it bother? I mean, can we just talk about that they auto-tuned her voice? No, that's fine. It's her saying, want to hear something sexy.

No, I love it. It's a choice. It's a choice. Want to hear something sexy? Want to hear something sexy? It's a choice. I mean, go for it, darling. Come on. It's just, I was like, I don't know. Wait, do I? Do I? Dahlie, what are you about to do? I didn't love, I wish they hadn't put the post-Malone vocal treatment on her vocal.

Because she already has such a warble that I thought it made it sound odd. And for someone where, you know, Dolly is forever, but she's getting up there in years. It made her sound very old to me when she was singing by herself. So I wish they hadn't done that. But other than I just, I thought it was silly. I thought it was fun. I bet they would have a great time together. I want to go to the honky tonk with Post Malone and Dolly Parton.

And that's why I love that song. Okay. I'm not going to stop you. I'll give you two more. Yeah, do it. California's sober. I love it. It's terrific and fun, intricate acoustic plucking of that guitar.

Chris Stapleton is just an American icon at this point. And one of the, and I will say, like, after the 10th featured artist, it starts to get a little old in some ways. Yeah, I wish he wasn't so buried on this record. I think it's there to pick it up a bit. And it needs to be picked up a little bit at that time. So I think a good choice in that sense. And there is something that's kind of a flex to sneaking in the Chris Daibleton cosign on your country album. Mm-hmm.

14 tracks in or whatever it is. And then I'll give you something off of side too. Oh. First of all, I do like, I like, hey Mercedes. I just, I think, you know, writing a love song about your car is a longstanding country tradition. And there's something, I was charmed by the fact that Post Malone gave it his own go. And then who needs you?

I don't need no blue eye reason. Maybe who needs you and I can break myself in true? I think is kind of great. you've absolutely no reaction to this. You think it's kind of great? Like, I'm, like, what do you mean? I think it's kind of great. It's a really simple song.

You know, it's basically a two-step. Yes. But I'm sitting there listening to it. And first of all, just really digging it, really digging the melody, really having a lot, you know, eat them alive, Larry. Eat them alive, Larry. Come on.

Like, loving hearing Post Malone call out to the guy on the fiddle. Yeah. But it's also like, this is practically a show tune. Right. Like I'm sitting there listening to this song and starting to think like, okay, what happens if you give Post Malone the Cole Porter songbook? Yeah, fair. And like, that's a crazy thing to be thinking about.

And that's sort of a testament to the fun of when, you know, I think there are valid questions about what's the right way for someone with Post Malone's background to just dive into another world and dive into another genre and put it on as his own in some ways. But one of the cool things about it is it makes, it makes things happen like that. You start to go like, okay, I can I can imagine this person's voice in all of these different scenarios. And I just got to say, I found that song really effective because it just made me go like, Post Malone could do a Billy Joel cover. Like Post Malone can do anything. Well, I think that's right. That's what this part, That's what Longbed feels like to me.

Like there's no, maybe this was done to drive streams for the album, okay, but it's not a song that anybody but the traditional, most traditional country fans would come back to. And it doesn't sound like bullshit. Like, it is believable. And again, you know, he's got some Texas in his resume. So you can. And he's been doing, I mean, he's done country covers for a long time. Yeah. Not his own songs, obviously, but it's not completely foreign to him.

But, yeah, no, I don't, you know, I'm not going to say that I think that song is the best song on the album. Okay. But it did, it's, it's stood out to me. And with 27 songs to go through, I think it's meaningful when something stands out. Well, so what on, I'm interested to get your thoughts on a few others. I mean, I think we're aligned around what the best ones are at the top of the album. I, there are parts that goes without saying that I really like, the Brad Paisley feature.

Nosedive is close for me. I really love Lainey Wilson. It almost gets there. It just doesn't quite have that big moment for me. I dig the chorus on Devil I've been. But I guess we just got a cut to it. Do you like what don't belong to me? So...

This is one of the three songs that doesn't have a feature. This is the one that to me is fine. I really liked it. Do you think it was written for this album? Because this is the least country sounding, this is the song of this whole thing that sounds like a different era of post-mala. Yeah, I think it's the right question to ask.

I personally think it's one of the best songs on the album. It's the first real ballad in the track listing. He really pushes his voice on the outro of this song. Yeah. And I love that. That's where I was like, wow, I get that we've sort of become accustomed to the auto-tuning, but this is something more than that.

there's real character to what he's doing here. And it almost to me, like, like when Taylor put out the, put out Fortnite and was like, his melodies have fascinated me for a long time. I was kind of like, what? But the way that he approaches this song, I bought, again, I was like, oh, okay, I sort of see it.

Yeah, I think it's a fair question to ask if this one was done in the context of that whole. It looks like it from a writer perspective. Let's put it that way. And it's the same set of writers that he would have been working with. So I don't think it was like something that they've been sitting on for a long time. But I mean, James Maddox is in there. He's not featured in other places.

This is an Ashley Gorely special, I think, and it sounds like it. It just, it feels a little bit less foreign to like Circles era post-Malone or like a sunflower. where I can hear with slightly different instrumentation that song fitting in in a way that most of these songs just wouldn't and couldn't and are so patently Nashville song machine insert Post Malone that I think it's an interesting, it's an interesting case. I like what don't belong to me.

I can't say it moves me in the way that it sounds like it moves. you, but I like it. Okay. All right. So that means we're... Doesn't need to go anywhere. I understand that that means we're not hugely misaligned on this album. Did, is there anything that moves you on goes without saying or nosedive or devil I've been?

Any of those? Goes without saying, I think is, goes without saying I really enjoy. It's, you know, I don't enjoy it in a way that's any different from how I enjoy. I had some help or pour me a drink. and it's probably not quite as undeniable. But again, I like the sort of like unlucky in love or a little bit of a fuckboy character that's present in a lot of these.

So I like goes without saying, nosedive, I love parts of nosedive. I do think that this is one of the songs where Lainey wins. I think nosedive is a better Lainey Wilson song than I think it is a post-Malone song. featuring Lainey Wilson. Okay. And I don't...

Luke Combs on this one as a writer. Yeah, and I just... It's not in the writing. It's... I wonder if he... Because he does kind of go for it on the bridge. In a way that he doesn't in the entire vocal, I just find...

I find her part so much more compelling for the most part that I think that pulls me out of it a little bit, but I do, I mean, I think there are parts of the song that are really beautiful. Well, then I'm now fascinated to hear what you want to cut.

And it sounds like there are a couple options for you, but let's just get to it. Do you hate the song about his daughter yours? Yes. Oh, my God. And one day I know

I'll give her away. Buddy, that don't mean she's yours. So for the most part, Oh my God. Like, it's unconscionable. There are only two, this album is so long, and there are only two songs that are actively detrimental to it. Okay.

And one is not even that bad. Okay. Yours, fire that shit into the sun. Wow. Get on here. Wow. Who allowed this? It's such a, you know, it's a little schmaltzy.

I'll give you that. it's a little bit like Yes, the schmaltz of thinking women are property Billy Joel's Lullaby. Well, I mean,

hide my gun is weird as hell. Hide my gun is the other one. Yes. Hide my gun is the one where I was like, dude, this song needs to be taken out to the woodshed and shot.

Would you hide my gun? Would you tell no one? Would you pack and never coming back to get back? Because this did not work for me at all. At all. No, but seriously. Like, if I killed someone, you'd help me out, right?

And at the end, it's like, what, okay, but not really. But it is. If it comes way too late, it is too little. What the hell is going on here? It seems connected to kill the man, which is on the longbed thing, but not really. Because kill the man, it's like, that seems like, you know, going after an abuser or something. He can't tell me no more lies. Yeah, I killed a man.

I killed a man last night. Yeah, I will say even killed a man, I find a little dark and weird and the death stuff doesn't work for me. But it's not anywhere near as weird as hide my gun. It is absolutely weird. No shit, I'd kill a man for you. And if I did, would you hide my gun? Is an actual lyric on this song. shit, I'd kill a man for you.

And if I did what... Hey, slow the fuck down. What? It really is like, hello. My name is Austin Post Malone, and I am here on my album to ask you, if I committed murder, would you help me get away with it?

Please sign on the dotted line. Thank you very much. And three songs later, you know, he's talking about being a father and how much he loves his daughter. And it's like, okay, all right. So I wasn't. is put off by yours in the way that you were.

I thought this was just him. You know, he wears a locket of hair around her neck. I mean, as the father of daughters, I understand the notion of having a broad, deep well of emotion that you want to express about your love for your daughters. Yeah, this isn't the song I would have wrote, but I'm glad that in the sun. I'm glad that he, you know, has these feelings and that he can sort of put them out there. It's also like, oh God, the line about the pink dress makes me want to die.

Yeah. Yeah, my first dress, it was pink. Yeah, that one isn't great. It's also, there's something, but I will say there's something about the fact that like this whole thing, for the most part, really reads as this like well-oiled machine. Like he goes into Nashville where there's this songwriting machine, gets the best of the best. They get together. They make these songs.

they have these like undeniable hooks. They make all the, hit all the beats of, you know, song about the car, song about the beer, all the country stuff. Like, it just checks every single box. And I suppose there's another box that is like socially weird, schmaltzy song about a particular relationship that if you look sideways at, starts to feel a little odd.

So in one sense, I suppose that's a part of that recipe too. But there's something about yours that, reads as such a misfire that is sort of funny for me to think about within the context of this album that like everything feels like it went pretty right down the middle except for

a couple of exceptions. Yeah. Well, I would cut my gun because that just feels like, you know what that feels like, it feels like that OJ book that was like if I did it. If I did it. That's what

it feels like. Post Malone better stay on the straight and arrow from here on out because if anything ever happens, and I don't mean to joke about anything bad. This is what some crazy motherfucker does. Like, it's like, yeah, it's not good. It's such a weird. Like, I know that that's a, you know, find someone who would, who would bury a body for you. Like, who actually talks like that?

Well, maybe somebody does, but I'm not sure you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, Watching it in the context of a love song is super weird. And it also just, it feels like, it feels like we're writing the metaphor too hard for it to not seep into like, hey man, you seem really serious about this gun thing. Yeah. Anything you want to talk about?

Yeah. Hey, what? I don't know. This one did not land for me. And that's okay. It's okay. there are better songs on this record about love. They're better songs on this record about guns even. There's better songs about Mexico.

It's like the first time you hear it, it feels a little over the top. It feels like a little much, a little weird. And then you keep listening. And then it's just like, oh, this is the whole song. Oh, okay. Strange one. Strange one we got here. that said it's not as bad as yours.

It's not as bad as yours. Wow. Well, what is up next? We've made our cuts. Do you want to hear my conspiracy corner? Please, always. That Taylor was just doing all of these digital releases just desperately trying to hold on to number one

so she could hand it off to Post Malone. I don't really believe that, but that was the best I could come up with because I don't really feel it. And then Eminem foiled her plans. Yeah, exactly. Do you think, I mean, I always, my response to any of these conversations about, like, the digital releases and Taylor at number one is like everyone always has me until the second part of the sentence.

It's like Taylor's doing all of this stuff to hang on to number one. Because she doesn't want Billy Eilish to have it. Because she wants to hand it off to Post Malone. And to me, it's just like. Taylor wants to be number one because Taylor wants to be number one end of story. However,

she did, like she plugged this album on her Instagram story. She did the whole thing. Well, there was a little tit for, I mean, it was kind of like

post appearing on what is the biggest song from tortured poets. You know, she's going to be supportive. What would you, if you can only take one to your desert island,

would you take Fortnite or would you take I had some help? I would, take I had some help. Yeah. For sure. As would I. This isn't so much a conspiracy corner,

but my Easter egg was, there was indeed a double album, which we talked about, but that had been circulating a bit as a rumor, fan theory. I think some of the, maybe like one of the session musicians

or something, somebody who had worked on this, slipped up in an Instagram post and posted something about working with Post Malone, and wrote double album and the caption and people screenchotted it. And we talked about what I think is interesting about that,

just being that there's a real flood the zone strategy with the two sides that reminds me a lot of what Taylor did with tortured poets. And I wonder, I mean, it wouldn't shock me if they talked about it. Yep. Agree. What is your peak post Malone?

It's his quote from the New York Times. I love my Maybach. That's still me. Everything was always me. I just don't go spend all my money in the strip club, comma, because I want to be in the woods. I want to be in the woods.

He does. I really think he does. Well, he lives in Utah. It's great. I just love my Maybach. I want to be in the woods. What I want to be? That's funny.

I mean, on a similar theme, I just, I did feel that there was something particularly appropriate to Mercedes in that, I think probably one of the most, perhaps even the most compelling love song on this album is about a car. Yeah, fair enough. But I mean, that's most country songs. Well, sure. It's peak post Malone and it's peak country album. But it's not an idea.

But there's a little bit of a twist, right? It's not a truck, even though the album is sort of named after a truck, although a hypothetical fake really, really tricked out truck. An awesome one. Would an F... The number... The number is the horsepower, right? Sure. Well, I don't know the answer to that.

I'm asking you. Why do you think I know the answer to that? Well, I don't know. I'm just... I think it's just a model number. Would an F1 trillion actually be a good thing? Or would it be like so powerful that if you put your big toe on the gas, you'd like explode?

I think it's just the... The number is just a model number. It's not the horsepower. Oh, so it's just like, this is a car from the future. Yeah, but it's just saying like it's... Yes, the most tricked out would be something that's like... Oh, you know what I think is really funny? is in what song is that on?

It's, oh, it's in, it's in Guy for that. It's one of Luke Combs's parts where he talks about, like, having a guy at MIT who won't let him touch the time machine, and then underneath in the production, they do like little like bleep bloop futuristic stuff. Yeah. Silly, funny. Can I tell you something?

What? The F-150, it refers to, to the truck's payload capacity. Definitely know what that means. Like, how much can it hold in the back? Oh. Like, and so 150, the F-150 Ford is basically rated for like 1,500 pounds. Oh, so this, this truck can hold so much.

This truck can hold so much. Cool. Cool, man. Love it. Post. All right. Who's this most important collaborator? An interesting category for an album with a lot of collaborators. A lot of features, a smaller subset of collaborators.

Sure. Well, collaborators of different types. I find it hard to pick one person out, but I think as a team, it's the songwriters. Yeah. I think there are interesting conversations about, you know, on a song-to-song basis with the featured artists who kind of, do they sound? good together. Do they sound like they're in a tussle? If they sound like they're in a little bit of a tussle, does Post Malone win that? Or does the featured artist sort of take over and you find yourself thinking, huh, should this just have been a whoever song? Those are interesting conversations.

I think he does pretty well in those on a track to track basis for me. I don't think he needed that many features for artistic reasons. Maybe he needed them for credibility reasons. But to me as a whole, when I listen to this album, the most effective piece of it is the songwriting. This is a long collection of really well-written songs. Many of them, I think, Post Malone adds something special to, and I'd rather hear his versions than other people's versions. That doesn't mean that these aren't songs that a lot of people could sing, and they'd still work. So to me, if I think about who did really superlative, made really superlative contributions,

it is Ashley Gourley. It is Luke Combs, yes, as a featured artist, but someone who's writing on a lot of stuff. Like, it's that whole team that I think more than, more than anyone as a featured artist stands out. Yeah. I had Charlie Hansom, who's Morgan Wallen's guy. He's been a lot of people's guys. But Charlie Hansom, I think, is the one who really helped him integrate culturally into Nashville

and set up the conversations with the insiders and set up the just sort of the hangs that led to an acceptance by everybody from session players to songwriters to get behind something that wasn't just about trying on clothes, but that I think people believed who were working on the project, was something natural and native to him as an artist. There are a lot of stories about how he did the work to gain acceptance, and I think that came from Charlie Hansom,

who had, has been in the pop world, has been in the rock, but also, obviously, through his work with Morgan Wallen, understood how you make Nashville go. Well, and he, in addition to Louis Bell, who's been with Post-Millan for a long time, are the two who produce and write on all of these songs, on every single one. So I think on a literal level, there's just a huge imprint.

I think I hear such evidence of kind of that Nashville song machine that that feels really central to why this worked. But as you're saying, Charlie Handsome had a lot, had a big role to play in connecting those people to this project and to Post Malone. What do you think comes next? I don't know. To me, to me, he's the poster child for genre blending.

I think there was a part of him that thought his career might be winding down after the last two albums. I mean, what he does next is he goes out and puts these songs on the road. And how he is received and the kinds of audiences that come out to this and whether they're all just standing around waiting for, I had some help, and then Rockstar is going to dictate the direction. I think he's going to listen to the audience and probably go where they are. Yeah, I think he's, I would even go a step further. I feel pretty confident he's got at least one more country-focused cycle in him.

And perhaps one where this, you know, I don't think we'll end up calling this like a transitional album or sort of a bridge album just because I think it's going to be a big, a big deal, a potential Grammy nomination, if not more. And so it won't feel like something that he did to get him from one place to another. But I wonder if if there's an interest in doing it a little bit more on his own than with the long list of collaborators and featured artists here. I do think there's enough here to work as proof positive that that would be a worthwhile thing to go out and do. And I don't know. I think it feels sort of right. Like even that silly New York Times quote that you read, like he wants to be in the woods. And this is a way that he can kind of stay in the woods. So I would be surprised if this is sort of like a one-off, even if it's a really big one-off.

Yeah. I think that's probably right too. This feels. like, again, a lot of people about him, call him the reverse Taylor Swift, where he goes from being a rapper, pop artist, into being a country star, instead of sort of going the other way from country to pop. That's kind of where it feels like he's settling in, but his fascination with just artists in general,

I think, leaves it open to, I'm just interested to see if he is fully adopted by the fan base, which it seems like he is going to be. Well, again, we'll judge from the road. Does he bring in other elements? of different genres and sort of advance the country genre from a sound standpoint. Does he create a branch that is innovative and that sort of is owned by the fan base as something that allows other elements from other genres to come into country music? Something that, again, as we saw

with Beyonce, has historically been a no-no. But also something that from the perspective of where Post Malone is coming from. I mean, the imprint of hip hop on country is not small. And even some, you know, like Morgan Wallin is someone who uses a certain, you know, is in a lot of ways sort of like a straight down the middle country artist, but uses a lot of fluency with like with rap, with rap cadences to inform what he's doing. And, you know, again, like, I don't think the jelly roll presence on this album is. is unintentional.

So it's not as hard of a fit as it seems like maybe it should be. So I wonder, but on the flip side, I think it makes it a little hard to answer the question of like, if he does, you know, settle down and stay a while,

what could Post Malone bring that would actually be new and would actually be different? He has such a unique sound and style to his voice that I think it would be interesting to see him stretch that a little bit. but like he would certainly not be the first person

to come from the world that he's coming from and incorporate some of the trappings of hip-hop and rap into more mainstream country. But that's just because people have done it before is not to say that he's not going to do it. How'd you grade this thing? So I gave it like a 91, which works out to an A-minus, just barely.

And I think that's where I'm landing. There is a world in which I was tempted to give this album an A on its own terms. Because I think in everything that it is trying to do, it's like pretty damn successful. And it's really listenable. I will certainly, you know, like Labor Day Weekends coming up. Yeah, that's what's going to say. It's a top to bottom to me. It's a great background music, certainly the first disc.

It's just, there is something about it. for as much as I enjoy it, and I really, really do. Like, I cannot, I could not look you in the eyes and say that this is an album with ambition on the scale of a cowboy Carter. Yeah. Like, that, it feels sort of patently ridiculous. Yeah. And I do, like, I hope it doesn't sound like I'm contradicting myself because I think

Post Malone, I think Post Malone brought something really specific to himself to, to this album that I really enjoyed, I also think there are 10 people who could have made this a hit record. Yeah. That's how I sort of sorted those competing impulses. What did you do?

Yeah, I gave it an A minus. I think I could probably argue for A. The only reason I gave it an A minus is there are moments of musical surprise in his voice. There are many moments of musical delight in his harmonies and melodies. There are no moments of musical delight in the songs themselves. There aren't surprises.

There's a lot of the usual suspects of tricks of the trade that I spoke about before. And that's okay because it's a very conforming album. And for a guy who has created a career out of non-conforming work and breaking some rules, this one, you know, there just isn't anything musically in here that feels like it breaks new ground. But it is delicious to listen to. I think that's the right. That's where I was coming from as well.

It's sort of, in what it's trying to do, it's really, really successful. And I think it's really, really enjoyable. But, and that's usually how we grade, right? Like, it's not necessarily about stacking things up together. it's about how successful was this piece of work on its own terms and what it set out to do. And I think on that level it's a really, really successful project. Yeah, I think it brings Post Malone back to extreme relevance. This is a guy who's in many ways has some of the biggest hits ever in the streaming era for

sure. And it charts a new course for his career and it retroactively makes a ton of sense why he was on the Beyonce and the Taylor Records. I do think it, you know, know, as we're talking about how our exercise right now is not about stacking these things up together just to bring it back to the Grammys, when that becomes the project, I guess one of the, a specter of a little kernel of something in the back of my head and going like, I can't give this an A. Okay. Is that I think when you do start to think in that way, I would have a hard time awarding this over some of the other stuff

that we've talked about just because I do think the scale of the ambition is less. I don't really want to process what I think would happen if this album wins album of the year.

I don't think it will. But if it did, I'm logging off. Well, I think country already has a hard enough time winning with the academy, but it's going to be a, I mean,

that you get to the heart of the question, which is the most interesting thing about this record in terms of its place in music is it comes out only a few months after Cowboy Carter. And they both go after the same thing in very, very different ways with different approaches and different artists and on and on and on. And really the only overlap is Post and Dolly. And how the public receives it, how the art is interpreted, how the fans of country and of genres outside of country receive it and either embrace or don't is the most interesting thing, I think. Yeah, I wonder how much there will be like a campaign around, you know, if this album gets nominated, how much pushing will happen. Because I have to say, I think that's the least,

the least flattering way to look at this record is as a mirror of Cowboy Carter. And I think they would be wise to avoid these things feeling like head-to-head reflections of each other as much as possible. Because I don't, like, I think... It's going to get album of the year. Right.

Nominee. And I think you got to give... I had some help. it's going to show up. And, I mean, it's going to be hard to, either Kendrick or Sabrina is going to be disappointed because of this song, I think. That's really interesting.

I mean, and in that sense, like, I don't have a, I, it's a huge song. Like, in a lot of, in a lot of these cases, and we'll have other chances to talk about this. So, like, we can talk about it more within the context of actual information, actual things happening. I think it's a, it's such, it's such a well-done album that, like,

it stands up for itself on the merits a lot of times. But when it goes head-to-head, you start thinking about how much smaller the scope is. And you also start thinking about, you know, just the tough look about, like, who is met with open arms and who isn't. Yeah. And it happens to be an incredibly white list of people who contributed.

And I just... it's a good album. It's a lot more fun to think about without that stripping it of that context. And the Grammys feels like the event that is most likely to put all of that in context with each other. So I guess we'll have to find out.

I want to just, Corriss correct what I said. I don't think that, I think Morgan Wallin has had trouble getting, I mean, he still doesn't have a trophy. So is he going to be a nominee for, I guess he does have two Grammys. But I just don't think he, he's going to be a guy who wins. Like, he had no awards at the 2024 Grammys.

So, like, why are they going to, is this going to actually put him over the top? I actually think for Post, it's the involvement with Morgan that might keep this from getting all the nominations. Interesting. I would almost be tempted to say that, I would almost be tempted to say the opposite,

which is that, like, post Malone is more likely to pull Morgan Wallen up than Morgan Wallen is to pull Post Malone back. back. But we'll find out. I think that does it for our album chat. However, Nathan, I'm on the internet right now. Streets are saying Travis Kelsey's in the video. What? You and I have and I can do it with a broken heart music video to go watch. Are you excited? I am very excited. All right, let's go. I hope we see the sled. This has been every single album. I'm Norman Princiotti. As always, he's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to the wonderful kindness.

Melin for producing this episode and we'll talk to you soon.