Hi, everyone. Vroomthony Vroomtano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Post Malone album, F-1 Trillion.

Here we have the newest full-length LP from singer, songwriter, mainstream music star, Mr. Post Malone, who has undergone quite the evolution since his breakout projects and singles in the mid-2010s - records that put him at the forefront of the burgeoning wave of rap, pop, R&B hybrid artists at the time. Auto-crooners wailing over trapped beats with melodic flows and soaring choruses.

And Post Malone has made some great tracks in that vein over the years, most specifically, in my opinion, on his record Beerbongs & Bentleys. Tracks like "Rockstar" as well as "Better Now", songs that were so catchy and so snappy, you could dress them in a number of different contexts, and they would still pop off. I just think they happen to be dressed in a way that made them appealing for your average mainstream trap fan. And I say this because at his core for a while now, Post Malone has come across more like a songwriter than a rapper per se, which I think has more or less been confirmed on his last couple of records, Twelve Carat Toothache as well as Austin, albums that saw him flirting a lot more with straight up pop and singer songwriter music.

And I think his intentions of moving in that direction are made even clearer on this latest project here, which includes a total makeover of his sound and also his image, because on this record, Post Malone is really swapping out the braided hair and the gold grills for cowboy boots, jeans, and trucker hats, because, yes, he is doing a full-on country album with F-1 Trillion, with well over an hour of material on the extended Longbed version of the album, as well as tons and tons and tons of features from country figures, both old and new.

So Post Malone has obviously made a very strong stylistic and aesthetic switch on this album. But you have to ask, what exactly is he bringing to the genre? Especially during a moment where it seems to be undergoing a bit of a creative renaissance, where once-small country songwriters with an indie appeal are now reaching into the upper ranks of the genre and achieving mainstream success out of nowhere. You also have other outsiders jumping into the genre and dropping some pretty creative works in the process, like Beyoncé with Cowboy Carter.

So again, with all of that being considered, where does that leave Post Malone? With his own foray into the genre that he has been teasing for so long with singles and live performances where he's all dressed up like a country artist, or at least like what he thinks a country artist should be dressing like. And listening to the record, it's pretty clear he's not really trying to carve out his own niche in the style or anything like that, more try to just fit in and blend in with everything else going on. Because on this record, you're essentially getting more than a dozen of the most bland and uninspired pieces of country pop rock production you're going to hear this year. Booming guitars, blaring drums, very glossy vocals, and just a bit of a twang and some fiddles thrown into the background to make sure it has that light country appeal.

I mean, the songs on this record, outside of maybe one, are inarguably country music for what passes in the genre today. But in actuality, the total package of this thing sounds about as rustic as a big box store or a car commercial music bed, which I know is just a reality of the modern aesthetics a lot of popular music is herded into by design. But at least an attempt at sounding organic or true to the original country form would have been nice, especially with Post Malone entering into genre after making a name for himself elsewhere.

Truth be told, though, I will say Post's vocals do sound really good in this style of music. He sounds more at home than you might think, considering this is the same dude that gave us "White Iverson". I could actually see a future for him in this style of music, too, given, again, just how good the vocals are outside of the moments where he's really laying into that forced vibrato that he has. So, yeah, surprise, surprise, Post Malone's croons sound really good in a country context.

I just wish it was all happening with stronger songs and instrumentals like the opening track, for example, "Wrong Ones", is an overly dramatic intro with the drums compressed to high heaven. Please, for the love of God, give me some breathing room. Meanwhile, the lyrics deliver this faux-tragic angle about searching for the right one, but always being looked at by the wrong ones while literally doing and saying everything and anything to basically make anybody who could be considered the right woman probably just want to avoid you. The call is most definitely coming from inside the house.

Generally speaking, though, I think the record's more downtrodden moments tend to land in a cold and uninteresting way. I much prefer the album when it's coming across a lot more self-aware, funny, and is maybe just up to some harmless antics, like on "Finer Things", which is not a bad piece of country rock. It's got a catchy chorus and cute lyrics about enjoying the finer things in life. When all the finer things are just what sounds like some expensive red neck shit. It's witty, it's outlandish, it's hilarious, even if it does come across as pandering a little bit, considering the audience switch that Post Malone is doing with this record. Plus the Hank Williams Jr. appearance isn't too bad.

On the back end of the record, we also have "Right About You", which is one of the more quaint and lovable ballads on the entire record. Really natural and organic sounding instrumental palate on this one, too, that I wish carried over onto more tracks.

And there's also "M-E-X-I-C-O" - Mexico - which I think is the most hilarious serious cut on the record, where Post Malone tells a story of being paid to disappear by the father of a girl that I guess he's taken with. And then he runs off with the money and is just up to some serious debauchery with it. It's a rootin' tootin' good time, not only in terms of the lyrics, but just the pacing, the tempo, the vocal harmonies. There's some nice picking and pedal steel on the cut, too.

So, yeah, overall, these are very good tracks, but I feel like the rest of the record just leaves something to be desired. Be that lyrically with tracks like the closer, "Yours", which is one of those sad but threatening Daddy Daughter ballads about how, Hey, you might be marrying my daughter, but remember, she's still my daughter. Why is it when we do country, we have to go into this regressive gender politic bullshit? Can we do a thing where the woman is not yours or his, and she's her own independent person with agency, and not talk about her like she's a piece of property?

There's also "Hide My Gun" with HARDY, which sounds like a really awkward thought experiment. As Post Malone explains, Hey, listen, if I hypothetically, hypothetically killed someone, would you hide the gun and stuff? The hypothetical angle of this song... He also stresses once again at the very end as if he's nervous that people are going to take this song the wrong way. Which if you're going to flirt with this murderous outlaw country thing, just go all the way and be so over the top with it that it would be hard for people to believe. Not like, you know, pussyfoot around it with all of this prefacing, all these reminders that like, okay, listen, I'm not actually going to kill anybody, okay? And again, it's so funny we're getting a song topic that is so edgy, and yet, instrumentally, it sounds like something you'd hear blasting out of the changing room at a Cabela's.

We have some more naughtiness going on with the track "I Had Some Help", which features Morgan Wallen, which is a sparkling piece of country with an anthemic chorus. It would be cute if not for the fact that the whole track is just glorifying this toxic, shitty relationship where each person is just blaming the other for how awful things are and just stuff going wrong, their respectively bad behavior. It just leaves you wondering, why are these people even together? They should break up. Why do they even like each other? Yeah, the only teamwork going on on this track is Morgan helping to make this song more cringe. Again, it all just feels like a mismatch.

"Devil I've Been", for example. You have this track where Post Malone is painting himself once again as a bad boy, he's a bad boy, and yet, instrumentally, it sounds like a ringtone I could set in my phone, which I think hurts the authenticity of the songs, especially when it feels like lyrically, they are desperately trying to pander to what Post Malone thinks a country audience wants to hear. Come on and pour me a drink. I'm here with all the losers.

This desperation is also made clear by the overabundance of features on the album, many of which are not incorporated all that creatively. They all, for the most part, get this second verse plug in. No more, no less. Somehow, Post Malone seems even more desperate to come across like he has something to prove as somebody who's entering into country music than Beyoncé did on Cowboy Carter. But yeah, again, the way he uses his features a lot of the time is just not all that great or just super predictable.

Chris Stapleton, for example, considering his vocal range and presence, I think is massively underutilized. Meanwhile, Dolly Parton, despite her greatness and importance in the country genre - it's cool that she's down to clown a bit on this track - but it feels like she's just being used like a gag on this track because, yeah, it's a nice song about how we don't have the heart to break up and break each other's hearts. But I feel like there's almost like an implied nod and wink going on here. With how, Hey, look, isn't it crazy that we have such an insane age gap going on? And on top of it, Dolly Parton kicks off her verse on the track with, "You want to hear something sexy?" Dolly, no, please don't do this. You don't have to do this.

I mean, for sure, sometimes the songwriting on this project can be cute and can be adorable in terms of wordplay or topical focus. Like with "Guy for That", which is about knowing a guy who can do just about everything, a guy who can fix this, fix that, do this other thing, but not fix your broken heart, which I totally fucked up. Sorry about that. I don't know a guy who can do that. Or the track "Goes Without Saying", goes without saying goodbye. It's one of many tracks on this record where it's pretty much about a woman leaving -a lot of women leaving on this album. But yeah, I just wish the execution of these tracks was more interesting in terms of just instrumentation, production, guests when they are incorporated. It seems like the only major aspiration that Post Malone had going into this record was that he wanted to make a country album that was commercially viable, agreeable, and listenable.

So his sights were clearly set pretty low, and as a result, the final outcome is pretty average, if not below average, which is why I'm feeling a decent to strong four on this one.

Anthony Fantano. Post Malone. Forever.