{"id":5281,"date":"2019-09-06T13:06:15","date_gmt":"2019-09-06T18:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=5281"},"modified":"2019-12-17T19:56:58","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T00:56:58","slug":"album-review-post-malone-hollywoods-bleeding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2019\/09\/06\/album-review-post-malone-hollywoods-bleeding\/","title":{"rendered":"ALBUM REVIEW: Post Malone \u2014\u00a0Hollywood’s Bleeding"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jarrad Levy<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Post Malone is weird. I think he is one of the most unique and talented artists in the sphere of modern pop music\u2026 when he\u2019s on. Despite the fact that songs like \u201cSunflower,\u201d \u201cPsycho,\u201d and \u201cStay\u201d are artistically brilliant and represent his variability of styles and sounds, the gems of Post Malone\u2019s catalogue are few and far between, and on his third album, <\/span>Hollywood\u2019s Bleeding<\/span><\/i>, Post Malone once again produces some really awesome individual songs, but fails to craft a truly excellent album.<\/span><\/p>\n

The opening and titular song of <\/span>Hollywood\u2019s Bleeding<\/span><\/i> is fantastic, with a hauntingly beautiful opening and a chilling beat switch that transitions the song into a club banger. The track is entirely unique and has quickly become a favorite song of mine in Post\u2019s arsenal. Post Malone continues the trend of unique songs with tracks like \u201cSaint-Tropez\u201d \u2014 where he retains his signature, auto-tuned and downer style, but is able to detach his vocals from the backing tracks at certain points to keep his sound unique \u2014 and \u201cTake What\u00a0 You Want\u201d \u2014 where Ozzy Osbourne is not only a vocal feature, but scorches the listener with an electric guitar solo. It is in these unique songs that a listener can really see that unlike many other pop artists and rappers, Post Malone is a student of music and truly appreciates the greats who came before him (check out him covering Oasis\u2019 \u201cDon\u2019t Look Back in Anger\u201d with Twenty One Pilots from Reading & Leeds Festival here<\/a>).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEnemies\u201d and the hit single \u201cGoodbyes\u201d ignite my second major issue with Post Malone. He often ruins fantastic songs with absolutely terrible guest features. While Ozzy Osborn, Halsey, and SZA continue to demonstrate their talent and uniqueness on <\/span>Hollywood\u2019s Bleeding<\/span><\/i>, \u201cartists\u201d like DaBaby and Young Thug ruin otherwise great songs. \u201cEnemies\u201d is a really strong club-pop song until Lil Baby ruins the vibe with his nonexistent flow and \u201cGoodbyes\u201d is a touching and emotional plea for help until Young Thug runs in with his upbeat and nasally voice and absolutely cringe-worthy \u201cyee yee yee!\u201d at the end of his verse. This is a trend that can be seen both in Post\u2019s older work and <\/span>Hollywood\u2019s Bleeding<\/span><\/i> and is easily my biggest issue with him as an artist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aside from the album\u2019s very strong positives and extremely depressing lows, <\/span>Hollywood\u2019s Bleeding<\/span><\/i> is easily Post Malone\u2019s darkest album, with the monster hit, \u201cSunflower,\u201d and single \u201cWow.\u201d being the only two real upbeat songs on the 17-track release. Most of the songs discuss loss of some kind and dive deep into mental health and emotional awareness \u2014 especially for a pop album. This is a trend that can be seen through much of Post\u2019s work and is something I really commend him for, as it would be easy to capitalize off of his last album and make mediocre songs about being rich and famous like so many others before.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, while <\/span>Hollywood\u2019s Bleeding <\/span><\/i>is not the best album, it is exactly what I expected from Post Malone: an entirely unique collection of some fantastic songs and others that I wish to never hear again. While most casual listeners will likely find no issue with the album and accept it for what it is, I find it difficult to be content with a mediocre album when Post is so capable of excellence. \u201cHollywood\u2019s Bleeding,\u201d \u201cAllergic,\u201d and \u201cTake What You Want\u201d will be in my rotation for a long time to come, while I\u2019ve already been jamming to \u201cWow.\u201d \u201cSunflower,\u201d and \u201cCircles\u201d since their respective releases. If you\u2019re a fan of Post Malone, you\u2019ll like the album. If you\u2019re a fan of music, you\u2019ll love <\/span>some<\/span><\/i> of the album.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jarrad Levy Post Malone is weird. I think he is one of the most unique and talented artists in the sphere of modern pop music\u2026 when he\u2019s on. Despite the fact that songs like \u201cSunflower,\u201d \u201cPsycho,\u201d and \u201cStay\u201d are artistically brilliant and represent his variability of styles and sounds, the gems of Post Malone\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1524],"tags":[157,872,770,838],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5281"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5284,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5281\/revisions\/5284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}