After much anticipation and teasing, Post Malone released his country album F-1 Trillion on August 16.
But it’s not a surprise. In 2015, he posted: WHEN I TURN 30 [I’M] BECOMING A COUNTRY/FOLK SINGER. For years, he’s pushed back on the limitations of genre by recording hip-hop, pop, R&B, trap, acoustic rock, and heavy metal music.
Some country artists like Taylor Swift, Maren Morris, and Keith Urban transformed country careers into pop careers, while pop stars like Beyoncé, Lana Del Rey, and now, Post Malone, have followed the cultural winds to Nashville.
Malone stacks his new album with country heavyweights like Tim McGraw, Dolly Parton, Blake Shelton, and Brad Paisley. Though he began his career uploading rap tracks to SoundCloud, you hear the results of a kid who grew up with a father who spun records as a wedding DJ. A young Austin Richard Post listened to and absorbed every style of popular music during his childhood. Now he’s curating the music with his own genre-hopping records.
Check out four key tracks from F-1 Trillion below.
Just like Dolly sang: Oh, what the hell’s one more night gonna hurt?
“California Sober” (ft. Chris Stapleton)
“California Sober” stomps its way through an ode about a girl in Daisy Duke shorts thumbing her way down the highway. The driver pulls over and picks her up, assuming he’s about to have a good time. However, she drinks his whiskey, smokes his smokes, and walks with his wallet. He’s left broke and out of fuel, the punchline of some cosmic joke. Chris Stapleton and Post Malone blend their voices throughout the honky-tonk track where the only outlaw in the story is the girl that got away … with his wallet.
“Have the Heart” (ft. Dolly Parton)
Post Malone connects the modern Nashville sound with something more traditional in an old-timey duet with Dolly Parton. Malone co-wrote “Have the Heart” with Louis Bell, Charlie Handsome, Lainey Wilson, Brad Paisley, and Ashley Gorley. Parton and Malone portray an affair too good to quit but too bad not to leave. Though they are both trouble, the best they can do is saw this love in half on a sawdust floor. This relationship might be all wrong, but Parton makes you root for the toxic affair to last long enough for one more dance.
“Guy for That” (ft. Luke Combs)
In the video for “Guy for That,” Luke Combs and Post Malone enter a pair of portable toilets. They don’t notice the plastic commodes are already on the back of a flatbed truck. The two chatter while they tinkle and the truck drives away. They end up on Broadway in Nashville, performing an impromptu gig on the flatbed as the street fills with country music fans and wandering tourists. Combs and Malone country croon about knowing guys familiar with rifles and Bibles, but the one thing they don’t have is a guy who can fix their ex’s broken heart.
“I Had Some Help” (ft. Morgan Wallen)
“I Had Some Help” kick-started Post Malone’s country move with a series of internet leaks. Then it landed on and remained at the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks. Morgan Wallen joins Malone on a 2024 drinking anthem where they navigate the mess of a bad romance. But they won’t shoulder all the blame, singing, “It ain’t like I can make this kinda mess all by myself.” Failed relationships are nothing new to Post Malone’s music. But wrapped in Nashville’s smoothed-over veneer, he sounds like he’s having fun trying to survive a perpetually doomed love life.
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