Leaving Hip-Hop Behind, Post Malone Turns His Vices Into the Stuff of Pure Synth-Pop in ‘Austin’: Album Review
variety.comChris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic With “Austin,” Post Malone has finally gone full pop star — as opposed to partial “Rockstar,” or hip-hop-adjacent star, or anything else he might’ve previously represented or flirted with.
The Post Malone we hear here would have been hard to imagine a few albums ago, when he was employing guest rappers by the boatload (there are none on the new record) and embracing trap sounds (also pretty much now absent).
If he was going to turn himself from a part-time rapper into something else, you might have guessed he’d become a rock dude, like Machine Gun Kelly.
But no. “Austin” is his bid to make something so unabashedly pop that it’s practically a cousin to the ‘80s-inflected music Harry Styles has been making lately … with some wrinkles, obviously, that make this “Posty’s House.” What sets it apart from that company is how nearly every catchy, singalong song, among the 18 here, has Getting Wasted as either a primary or secondary theme.
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