Post Malone gets it.
He was the guest on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast last summer (nearly a 5 hour conversation if you have the time), but during that conversation they got to talking about music, and more specifically country music. Of course, this was before Post Malone officially announced his country music, but you have to imagine that they were already working on things behind the scenes. More on that at the end of this…
Posty asks Joe what he listens to, and Joe says he has very varied music taste, from classic rock to 90’s hip hop, as well as a few country artists like Zach Bryan, Jelly Roll, Tyler Childers, and Sturgill Simpson.
And Post pretty much names the holy trinity in terms of the best artists in the genre right now when it comes to his favorites… Sturgill Simpson, Tyler Childers and Colter Wall:
“It’s Sturgill, Tyler and Colter right now for me.”
Good taste.
Post went on to say that he’s actually reached out to Colter before about working on a song together, but he has experienced the same issue Joe has, in that Colter spends a lot of time ranching when he isn’t out on the road.
Post explains:
“I hit up Colter, I was like, ‘Hey, man, you wanna come jam out sometime? Let’s make a song.’
And he was like, ‘You can come make a song on the ranch.’ And I was like okay, cool, amazing. I’m gonna make it up one of these days. He came out of the womb smokin’ a f***in’ cigarette, and it was the coolest s**t.”
Joe and Post go on to rave about Colter’s Original 16 Brewery Sessions (which is probably how most people first discovered him) from a few years ago and how much they loved his performance of “Sleepin’ on the Blacktop” and “Kate McCannon.” Of course, Colter himself has dismissed those performances, calling them “forced” and cringey in a series of now-deleted tweets.
“I’m glad folks still enjoy those brewery sessions from 2015. I can’t watch them without cringing. The vocals are very forced. I’m grateful for what their popularity has done for me, but I hope folks are able to accept that I simply don’t play/sing that way anymore.”
He also added that he hated the kick drum, and I’m not gonna lie… I love that part. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Anyways, Post Malone went on to discuss how much he loves the traditional country sound and how Tyler and Colter keep that alive in their music today:
“The whole Johnny Cash… he always sang murder ballads, you know what I mean? It’s like, I shot a f***in’ dude in Reno, I shot the guy that my wife loves, all this s**t.
It’s the old school production, it’s the old school voice. And I find a lot of the time in country now, it’s very overproduced. And so what I love about Colter and Tyler and everything is it’s just more traditional in that way.”
And lastly, he acknowledged that, while he definitely has a lot of production and autotune in his own music, there’s something so magical about that true country sound.
“There’s a lot of production in my music, as well… whenever I listen to folk or country, I go towards Colter and Tyler and Sturgill every time.
Because I don’t know, that bounce, there’s something so magical about that classic f***in’ bounce. That Cash bounce, that train bounce. There’s a lot of songs that are country but it doesn’t have that bounce that I love so much, you know what I mean?
At that point, it’s a lot of pop mix-ups, and that’s never been bad. Because what I’ve always trued to do, and I’m sure people said the same ting about me, because I sit and play the guitar with 808’s and all that s***.
Whenever I’m listening to that (country), it makes me feel like I’m a hard ass.”
Of course… all of this conversation kind of begs the question… why isn’t that the style he went for with this country album he’s releasing?
Post Malone recently announced his first official venture into the country music world with F-1 Trillion, set for release on August 16th. So far we’ve heard the smash hit “I Had Some Help” featuring Morgan Wallen, a duet with Blake Shelton straight out of the 2014 bro-country era, and a catchy tune featuring Luke Combs titled “Guy For That.”
He’s performed a heartfelt daddy-daughter song called “Yours,” (perhaps my favorite so far), teased collabs with Chris Stapleton and Ernest, and a leaked features sticker from Target confirms collabs with others like Billy Strings, Sierra Ferrell, Dolly Parton, Hank Jr. and more.
And while I’ll reserve judgement for when the album actually comes out and I can give it a proper listen, so far, we haven’t really heard much of that traditional country sound that Post Malone says he loves. And sure, warm your regular fans up to country music with some of the most radio-friendly songs with the biggest artists (Luke and Morgan), I get it… but is that a preview of the whole record? I hope not…
By all accounts this record will be an absolute smash, and we’re already seeing signs that will have more staying power than Beyonce’s big crossover project (which she explicitly said wasn’t country, but whatever…). I just hope that we get some more of that traditional country flavor from Post… the dude is talented as all hell, we know he can pull it off.
Exhibit A: His covers of Brad Paisley’s “I’m Gonna Miss Her” and Sturgill’s “You Can Have The Crown” from a couple years ago.
And I’ll just leave this here, too…
