92 new york |september 16–29, 2019
PHOTOGRAPHS:MARCBRENNER(BETRAYAL);POSTMALONE/TWITTER(POSTMALONE)every post malone album
serves at least one 100-proof dis-
tillation of the New York–via–Texas star’s
work, bolstering his odd standing as a
singer-songwriter whose principle building
blocks come from trap music but whose
tastes suggest that his final destination lies
somewhere farther afield. “Broken Whis-
key Glass” opens 2016’s Stoney on a hang-
over and a lyric about the painful day after
a reckless night out that’s closer in spirit to
country drinking songs like “Sunday Morn-
ing Coming Down” than the pill-and-syrup
anthems that count as its contemporaries.
Last year, Beerbongs & Bentleys’ “Over
Now” recruited Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee
for a trip into the atmospheric sorta-rock
typified of late by Imagine Dragons and
Rag’n’Bone Man, as Post lashed out at peo-
ple who doubt him, both in relationships
and in the public eye. “Broken Whiskey
Glass” and “Over Now” punch through
party-rap tropes to peek at the motivations
behind the drinking and drug use on the
surface; it’s hard to reconcile the cynicism
prevalent in Post Malone’s music with the
general impression of him as a lighthearted
stoner. He’s saying something about fame,
but we’re not all listening.
This month, his third album, Hollywood’s
Bleeding, repeats the trick: Across a single
rapid-fire verse and a
melodramatic chorus,
“Internet” melts down
about leakers, aspiring
Instagram models, bad
press, and social-media
slander, all in the buildSad-BoyAutumn
Hollywood’s BleedingfindsPost
Malone trying newvibesonforsize.
POP / CRAIGJENKINS
HOLLYWOOD’S
BLEEDING
POSTMALONE.
REPUBLICRECORDS.to a climax where Post sweetly proclaims, “I
don’t get on the internet no more.” It’s a
page from the Kanye West playbook of pub-
lic paranoia, the same mix of snark, stress,
andholiday-jingle strings that were batter-
ies for “Runaway” and “RoboCop.” (“Inter-
net” lists West as a co-writer, and fans will
recognize it as “InstaLove” from the Yandhi
leaks, with the placeholder Kanye verse
scrubbed.) Post had a close call last summer,
when two tires blew out of a private Gulf-
stream jet meant to carry him from Teter-
boro Airport in New Jersey to Luton in
London, forcing the flight to plot an emer-
gency landing in Hudson Valley’s Stewart
International. Logging onto Twitter to
assure fans that he landed, he discovered
people wishing he’d crashed. Two weeks
later, a Kia T-boned a Rolls-Royce carrying
him through West Hollywood, after which
he got out and tweeted, “god must hate me
lol.” At 24, Post Malone is fortifying a house
in northern Utah as an “oasis” from the
bloodsucking social scene that soured him
on Los Angeles.
Hollywood’s Bleeding revisits the fearful
mood of Beerbongs tracks like “Paranoid,” a
song written after Post was informed of a
break-in at his old Hollywood home. He
Ping-Pongs between stressing over the
machinery of fame and having fun in spite
of himself. The first half-dozen songs are a
gauntlet of parties, worries, and venting
sessions about toxic relationships. One
minute, it’s celebrating the spoils of hard
work in “Saint-Tropez,” and the next, it’s
linking with North Carolina sensation
DaBaby for “Enemies,” a passive-aggressivejab at backstabbing friends that’s sort of
like a Bro Code version of Beyoncé’s “Sorry.”
There’s wistful notes even in the upbeat
songs; divorced from the vivid, psychedelic
colors of Into the Spider-Verse, soundtrack
staple “Sunflower”’s words about overcom-
ing trust and compatibility issues stand out
as much as the melodies.
“Sunflower” exemplifies Hollywood’s
Bleeding’s approach to genre. The album
rearranges shards of rap, rock, punk, and
dance music into its own images. There’s
peppy pop-rock confections and standard
trap collaborations, nods to hip-hop–soul
and to house music. Post Malone is a sturdy
bridge between Future and Halsey on “Die
for Me,” and the SZA jam “Staring at the
Sun” is a rewarding trip back to the well of
jaunting R&B-pop powering “Sunflower.”
“Take What You Want,” a trap-rock tune
featuring guest vocals from Ozzy Osbourne
and Travis Scott, is a gem and a song only
Post Malone would think to make. (When I
met him during press for Stoney’s “Too
Young,” he told me he grew up on Metallica,
Pantera, Biggie, 2Pac, and OutKast, and he
dreamed of matching Future with Texas
country legend George Strait on the same
song. Having Travis and Ozzy feature on
“Take What You Want” is the apotheosis of
this kind of thinking.) He’s restructuring his
sound a little with each album, and it’s here
that the artist’s occasionally jibing spheres
of interest produce something that feels
perfectly natural in its contradictions.
Hollywood’s Bleeding doesn’t always stick
the landing. There’s around a dozen slight,
pleasant sad-boy autumn jams in this batch
of 17. “On the Road” houses a killer Meek
Mill verse but also rehashes bits of “Rock-
star” in the melody. The pop-rock jams
“Allergic,” “A Thousand Bad Times,” and
“Circles” sound like different drafts of the
same song, scheduled in a row up top. Hol-
lywood’s Bleeding is Post Malone in a fitting
room, trying new vibes on for size. Some
work, and some don’t, but the willingness to
take risks is admirable, even though Post
Malone’s reluctance to be pigeonholed as a
rapper seems to come from a place of feeling
limited by the genre. There were never lim-
its. Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys made
room for punk and hard-rock sounds in hip-
hop in the ’80s. In the ’90s, Rage Against the
Machine cut rap with metal and A Tribe
Called Quest brought jazz. In the aughts,
OutKast and Kanye jammed soul, funk,
prog, and ragtime in a blender. In this
decade, Alchemist is making great beats out
of yacht rock. Hip-hop is collage art. Any
material suffices. There’s no need to escape
it when you can shape it to fit your needs.
Hollywood’s Bleeding is a step toward this
realization and a solid plate of downcast
sounds for the passage into fall. ■