Opinion | From ‘beerbongs’ to ‘bleeding’: growing up with Post Malone

Luca Evans
Sports Editor
@lucae123

The first time I listened to Post Malone’s album “beerbongs & bentleys” was in my senior year of high school, when time didn’t move linearly but in strange loops that gave us shrouds of invincibility. I went through the track list for the first time in the library with my best friend. We were spellbound in our own headphones by Malone’s reflections on his rock star lifestyle, paying no mind to the textbooks in front of us. The album began to exist as a backdrop, an ornate tapestry on the wall of my senior-year office as I roamed around San Francisco with no worries of school or college applications. 

Ever since Malone released his latest album “Hollywood’s Bleeding” – his first since 2018’s “beerbongs” – I’ve found myself thinking back on those times during senior year when the world seemed much less complex, yet more rich in flavor – a direct contrast between the styles of the two albums. My senior year was defined by listening at full volume to “Ball for Me” with wind whipping through my hair on a drive to the beach, staring up at the twinkling city lights to Malone and Swae Lee’s melodies on “Spoil My Night,” or swinging from one monkey bar to another at a playground as night turned to morning with the 808’s of “92 Explorer” bouncing around in my head. 

“Beerbongs” was Malone waving triumphantly from the sunroof of his Bentleys, spending money, partying and gripping materialism with white knuckles lest he let thoughts of an uncertain future or the women he missed bring him down from his high. It characterized and encouraged the carefree nature of senior year, the last rodeo before we became adults.

Nearly two years have passed since then. That sentence still doesn’t seem real, because it feels like just yesterday that we’d brush aside the tall grass under the eucalyptus trees behind our school and march up to our friend’s house at the very top of a San Francisco hill. Yet at the same time, I’ve grown to realize that so much has happened since that time; how I’ve changed and matured, how Malone has changed and matured.

If the theme of “beerbongs & bentleys” was poppy, surface-level indulgence, the throughline of “Hollywood’s Bleeding” is Malone taking a step back from what he’s accumulated and taking more of a critical eye as to what’s around him, what he thinks of himself and who he can trust. Songs such as “Take What You Want” and “Circles” are not only more musically complex than the majority of work he’s released in the past; they involve Malone truly understanding and accepting his life and relationships. 

My senior year of high school, I may have had the most opportunity to appreciate how far I’d come, but I didn’t take much time to stop and smell the roses. As I worked through my first year of college – through all the ups and downs along the way – I recognized I wanted to pay more attention to the smaller moments in life. I want to continue capitalizing on my accomplishments rather than simply lingering on the good feelings they brought up. I want to not take the time I spent with my friends and loved ones for granted. Most importantly, like Malone, I chipped away at the lingering idea in my head of 2017’s invincibility and accepted that I had acres of room to grow. I appreciate Post Malone’s transformation, because it helped me take the time to reflect on my own.