Album Review: "Beerbongs and Bentleys"
Post Malone is one of the most compelling artists to emerge from the rap world in the past few years. His unlikely rise to musical stardom began in a heavy metal band, citing Bob Dylan as a larger influence than any hip-hop artist at the beginning of his career.
"Malone’s relationship with the larger world of hip-hop has been turbulent at best, with controversy aplenty at every step of his days in the public light."
After his breakout debut in 2015 with melodic trap single “White Iverson,” Malone was launched into the public eye and received a broad spectrum of reactions. Some praised his powerful vocals and sleek production, while others criticized his simple songwriting and apparent lack of originality. With the release of his debut album, “Stoney,” he settled into his signature sound: a blend of hip-hop, R&B and singer-songwriter music with a slight country twang. He released spacey, drugged-out music with luscious melodies and a dreamy atmosphere while lacking urgency.
In the time between “Stoney” and his new album, “Beerbongs & Bentleys,” Malone’s relationship with the larger world of hip-hop has been turbulent at best, with controversy aplenty at every step of his days in the public light. He has been regularly dismissed as a “culture vulture,” freely taking a hip-hop aesthetic to make his rock-influenced music more relevant to a mainstream audience without paying due respect to either culture.
These criticisms were further corroborated by various interviews; for instance, in one particularly infamous interview, Malone claimed that people shouldn’t listen to hip-hop if they want to “think about life.” He also insisted that he was not a rapper, but instead, an artist. And of course, perhaps most famously in his smash hit single, “Rockstar,” he often refers to himself as a rock star, comparing himself to Jim Morrison as opposed to a more conventional hip-hop icon like Tupac.
However, Malone is no longer an underdog in hip-hop. The aforementioned “Rockstar,” which stayed at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for eight consecutive weeks, was certified five-times platinum by the RIAA.
The song’s production, with gloomy synths and booming 808 drum machines, is an excellent take on the dominant trap sound. The chemistry between Malone’s catchy hooks and 21 Savage’s cocky delivery helped the track stand out in a currently oversaturated market. “Rockstar,” along with companion single “Pyscho,” was arguably 2017’s biggest force in hip-hop. So, when Malone released “Beerbongs and Bentleys,” he no longer had to worry about what the established hip-hop community thought of him and his style; he was the new hip-hop.
Despite controversy, his nonchalant attitude towards genres and his apparent lack of respect for hip-hop icons, all eyes in hip-hop and popular music were fixated on him. Malone further proved himself with the aftermath of the album’s release, which completely shattered streaming records previously held by Drake. Like it or not, Malone’s music is not only influenced by hip-hop, it is in an integral part of what hip-hop is in 2018.
In “Beerbongs and Bentleys,” Malone does not make many changes to his signature style. Instead, he takes the key qualities of his music and turns them up to eleven. The sleek, dreamy production is now more grand and complex, with each song changing up the sonic landscape. Like “Rockstar,” many of the album’s tracks follow the ubiquitous trap formula.
However, Malone tends to incorporate a more melodic, raw vocal performance than most of his contemporaries do. Rather than the auto-tuned sound of many trap artists, Malone takes inspiration from more pop and country tinged vocal stylings. For the most part, Malone’s vocal performances are the biggest strength of the album’s tracks. Occasionally, the hooks can feel bland and repetitive, but he typically makes up for it with many rich vocal melodies.
Malone takes the multi-genre approach of his first project and amplifies it on “Beerbongs and Bentleys,” creating moments that are far more genre-defined. “Stay” employs a folk-esque acoustic guitar, while “Blame It On Me” and “Over Now” are grungy rock-rap tunes. On the other hand, on songs like “Same B*tches,” featuring G-Eazy and YG, and “Takin’ Shots,” Malone adopts a more traditional rapping style, using grittier flows. The lyrics are also brought up a notch, with Malone telling grand tales of hedonism, drinking and drugs.
The biggest drawback of “Beerbongs and Bentleys” is its sameness. Although Malone changes up genres and rapping styles, the album’s production and songwriting still retain a sense of painful uniformity. Despite the catchy trap production and anthemic hooks, which will definitely be making waves at clubs and parties, listening to the album as a whole is excruciatingly difficult due to the constant repetition of sonic motifs throughout the tracklisting.
That being said, the highlights of “Beerbongs and Bentleys” are still some of Malone’s strongest material to date. Opening track “Paranoid” has one of the strongest hooks on the album. “Rich and Sad” and “Zack and Codeine” feature light and airy vocal melodies paired with sleeker production. The former, specifically, finds Malone stripping back his ego. Another highlight is the single “Psycho,” which combines guitar melodies exceptionally well with an 808 bassline. “Jonestown (Interlude)” takes a much darker path in terms of production and songwriting, with Malone crooning over dark, pulsing synths. Contrastingly, the album’s final stretch features some of its most upbeat and celebratory songs. “92 Explorer” is driven by a percussion-heavy beat and a poppy chorus, while closing track “Sugar Wraith” features layered melodies that culminate in an epic climax.
Post Malone’s sound has improved greatly on “Beerbongs and Bentleys,” but I still would have liked to see more variation between tracks. His eclectic sound is drawn from many influences, but apart from a few tracks, I felt that his genre-mixing resulted in a bland melting pot of half-baked ideas rather than a distinctive and inventive piece of art.
Even so, the record’s blandest moments are still improvements, and pretty much every single track contains at least a catchy melody of some sort to make it bearable. The highs are high, the lows are mediocre and Post Malone is not going anywhere soon.