It’s been a while since fans have heard new material from the country-fied Post Malone of the 2020’s. His 2024 album, F-1 Trillion, made a legitimate impact, especially on the back of the “I Had Some Help’s” enormous success. Scoring himself collaborations with some of the most iconic stars and legends in the genre, he was celebrated with more positive treatment from fans and critics than any other crossover act to date. At the same time, there were still some strong disbelievers. His newly announced upcoming double album, The Eternal Buzz, could be a strong collection of tracks that prove he belongs in country music if executed well. However, after canceling several shows and stating he needed to “get this music done,” there’s now more pressure than ever for Malone to release his very best material.
In a vague Instagram post from early April, Malone shared a picture of a tracklist for The Eternal Buzz, featuring 40 mysterious, unnamed tracks split across two discs. When artists release records with that much quantity, there’s always a higher chance that quality will dip, and in Post’s case, that’s the last thing his country music star status can afford. Nobody likes it when their favorite movie gets a bad sequel, and if The Eternal Buzz is a step in the total wrong direction, that’s exactly how Post Malone fans will feel. While there are no true definitives for the right or wrong moves for the project, we’ve done our best to demonstrate its best and worst possible outcomes.
Best Case Scenario
- Get More Personal
A large aspect of F-1 Trillion that can be improved upon is the lack of personal connection. It seems that by taking a big swing at becoming a country star, most of the tracks from that project ended up on the gimmicky side of fictional storytelling. While most of the themes avoid going too far over the top, all the breakup songs feel more geared towards cleverness than earnestness. In The Eternal Buzz, finding Post loosen up on his hillbilly persona could change the way everyone connects with his music. Hearing even just a few intimate, believable accounts of pain and tragedy, like he’s shown in songs like “Stay” and “Feeling Whitney” from earlier projects, would strongly elevate the total experience of his new record.
2. Strip Things Back a Little
Before his debut country album, Post Malone was known for supporting artists who had comparatively less mainstream recognition, such as his F-1 Trillion collaborators. You might’ve seen him sporting his Colter Wall shirt or covering a Sturgill Simpson song, which at the time sparked a lot of curiosity about an eventual crossover. When he finally revealed his more polished, radio-ready sound, it wasn’t exactly unexpected. However, there was definitely still a desire to hear his country music affinity in a different light. In The Eternal Buzz, the opportunity for Malone to pursue a less in-your-face style still presents itself. Especially after knowing his fandom for artists who fall more into the folk, indie, and outlaw subgenres, it would make sense for a sound with less Nashville-oriented production to feel truly authentic and natural.
3. Less Vocal Strain
Another primary complaint with F-1 Trillion lies in the actual delivery of each song. Over the course of his many albums, Post Malone has demonstrated the ability to sing without much strain. However, for his country efforts, he tended to wail, letting vocal fry undermine the natural textures of his voice. Those who’ve seen Malone in concert would likely agree that he could benefit from a bit of training in the area of vocal projection to avoid totally losing his voice to strain. That same abrasive, untrained rasp was genuinely distracting in his last record and would be an unfortunate addition to The Eternal Buzz.
Worst Case Scenario
- Remake of F-1 Trillion
The last thing Post Malone needs is forty songs that sound like cheap copies of his previous material. Because it will be a rather long double album, this is far from unlikely. Artists like Morgan Wallen are known to include countless songs about whiskey on the same project, and considering that F-1 Trillion was primarily written with Morgan Wallen’s frequent co-writers, it made total sense to see a similar effect of redundancy. However, fans have heard their share of overly polished songs about pouring drinks and rolling smokes from the Texas-native, and if that’s all he brings to the table in his new record, listeners will get bored and agitated very quickly. The very worst route for The Eternal Buzz would be to once again, constantly circulate all his romanticized bad habits, as well as his desire to adjust that same behavior for love, while simultaneously keeping the arrangements for each track seamlessly similar to F-1 Trillion. Those worked well enough once, but this isn’t really a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” moment.
2. Lazy Writing
When an artist cancels tour dates because his music isn’t ready to release, it typically isn’t a good look. The longtime listeners who planned trips and hotel stays deserve new music that was worth that little bit of extra crunch time. That said, if a large percentage of these new tracks aren’t full of the most engaging, creative, impactful lyricism Posty has produced to date, fans have plenty of reason to be upset and question his process. Because Malone is known to craft these songs in large rooms full of some of the best writers in the world, it’s not too big of an ask to request profound writing. Country music has very critical, avid listeners, and a clump of low-effort radio songs that were solely pumped out to sell merch and move tickets will be quickly chewed up and spit out.
3. Too Many Features
While it was nice to hear an extension in F-1 Trillion: Long Bed, which included no features on the added disc, the original version of the record flatly had far too many collaborations. With fourteen featured artists across eighteen songs, fans missed out on a one-on-one connection with Post. Even if he was expressing a real account of his feelings, it never felt like it when another artist came on the mic. It almost seemed like having so many respected artists on his project was his way of comfortably settling into the genre without being labeled an outsider. If this is the case, he should now be too established to include such a large quantity of features on a second record (although a few couldn’t hurt).
