Post Malone has us Running in Circles

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Nate Sloan (1:28)

Welcome to Switched On Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan.

Charlie Harding (1:32)

And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding.

Nate Sloan (1:33)

Let's listen to some music. Let's!

Charlie Harding (1:59)

What's up, Bob Dylan?

Nate Sloan (2:00)

Yeah.

Charlie Harding (2:00)

But what Bob Dylan? That's not Bob Dylan.

Nate Sloan (2:02)

Who's that? It's not Bob Dylan. Though you're right. This is a song by Bob Dylan called.

Charlie Harding (2:06)

Don't Think Twice It's Alright.

Nate Sloan (2:07)

Yeah.

Charlie Harding (2:07)

Beautiful song.

Nate Sloan (2:08)

Yeah.

Charlie Harding (2:09)

It's got that nice little descending harmony line.

Nate Sloan (2:11)

What do you think of this performance?

Charlie Harding (2:14)

That's convincing.

Nate Sloan (2:14)

It's good, right?

Charlie Harding (2:16)

Ah, I mean, the guitar line had me sure that this must just be an old bootleg of Bob Dylan, but the vocal is too tinny and actually maybe slightly more in tune than Bob might be.

Nate Sloan (2:32)

What if I told you we were listening to Austin Richard, AKA Post Malone?

Charlie Harding (2:38)

The show's over.

Nate Sloan (2:40)

You have a complicated relationship to one Post Malone.

Charlie Harding (2:43)

I have, yeah.

Nate Sloan (2:44)

Yeah. We're gonna explore that today. You're gonna lie down on the couch and we're gonna get to the root of your consternation with this artist. Does this surprise you, listening to this?

Charlie Harding (2:57)

No, I mean, I know that he has this way of sort of blending hip hop and folky music and he plays acoustic guitar and I think he's from Texas, right? So he's got some like Americana musical roots. So I'm not surprised. I mean, this is also by the way, like anyone who plays guitar, I think if you search like guitar tabs online and like the top 100 guitar tabs of all time, like this song is gonna pop up in the top couple of songs.

Nate Sloan (3:22)

Hearing him perform this surprised me. I think I had a very specific image of who Post Malone was and what he sounded like.

And I know him to be an artist who is very controversial. He was the subject of a viral review in the Washington Post.

Charlie Harding (3:39)

What was that?

Nate Sloan (3:40)

Which described him as quote, a rhinestone cowboy who looks like he crawled out of a primordial swamp of nacho cheese. He has been subject to criticism of unoriginality, of cultural appropriation and of promoting bad behavior.

Charlie Harding (4:00)

Are you certain that it's not just the Washington Post being frustrated about him copying their name? Thanks for the generous laughter.

Nate Sloan (4:08)

That was a solid dad joke, Charlie. I feel like the ambivalence around Post Malone is even captured by his name, Post Malone. Where did that come from? What does it mean?

Charlie Harding (4:20)

I immediately go to postmodernism, as if there was a band named Malone, and then this is what happens after Malone.

Nate Sloan (4:28)

Here's his explanation of his name.

Post Malone (4:31)

When I was a little kid, I was looking for a nice name like Wiz Khalifa. I just thought it kind of rolled off the tongue, so I went to a rap name generator and typed in Austin Post, and it came up with Post Malone.

Nate Sloan (4:41)

That's the beginning, middle and end. I feel like this anecdote captures some of the ambivalence around Post Malone. It's like, is this guy even trying?