Post Malone: F-1 Trillion review: Feel-good country… by Taylor’s favourite rap star, writes ADRIAN THRILLS

American superstars Taylor Swift and Beyoncé choose their collaborators carefully, so any artist who has been invited into the studio by both of them clearly has something special to offer.

Step forward Post Malone, a Texas-raised singer and rapper who features on Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department and Beyoncé’s country  album Cowboy Carter.

What’s more, the duets in question — Fortnight on Taylor’s LP and Levii’s Jeans on Cowboy Carter — are high points on a couple of the year’s best  albums, with Post’s tender voice dovetailing seamlessly with two of the most famous women in pop.

Far from being overawed, the bearded, heavily tattooed 29-year-old rises to the occasion.

If those collaborations were a surprise to fans who had him pegged as an R&B and hip-hop phenomenon who occasionally strayed into alternative rock — as when he live-streamed a set of Nirvana covers from his home during lockdown — then his latest move will come as an even greater shock: on F-1 Trillion, Malone has made a feel-good country record.

Post Malone, a Texas-raised singer and rapper who features on Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department and Beyoncé’s country album Cowboy Carter

F-1 Trillion an affectionate homage rather than a ground-breaking endeavour, that’s debatable

Maybe his decision to don a cowboy hat isn’t so unusual, though. Country music is in the ascendancy.

In addition to Beyoncé’s album, 2024 has seen Shania Twain performing at Glastonbury and Zayn Malik taking tips from Nashville.

Shaboozey’s A Bar Song (Tipsy) is one of the songs of the summer, and Lana Del Rey is currently working on a country record.

So, does Post Malone bring anything fresh to the rodeo? With F-1 Trillion an affectionate homage rather than a ground-breaking endeavour, that’s debatable.

But with the singer backed by a truly stellar cast of good old boys and rhinestone divas — Chris Stapleton and Dolly Parton among them — there’s no doubting his vocal talent or ability to spin a good yarn.

It’s an album of bad-luck tales and hard- drinking songs. ‘I got ten problems down in Tennessee, and I ain’t got the time to fix ’em all,’ he sings on Wrong Ones, a duet with Tim McGraw.

On Pour Me A Drink, which he sings with Blake Shelton, he’s drowning his sorrows on account of getting a speeding ticket and watching a last-minute defeat for the American football team the Dallas Cowboys.

F-1 Trillion occasionally tips over into cliché. It’s also way too long — its original release, as an 18-track single LP last weekend, was followed by the appearance of another nine songs as part of an expanded ‘Long Bed’ edition.

The quality of the writing is high, but there’s still a lot to digest.

I Had Some Help, sung with Morgan Wallen, showcases Malone’s melodic instincts, while the up-tempo Dolly duet, Have The Heart, is sprinkled with characteristic Parton stardust and humour.

‘Wanna hear something 𝑠e𝑥y?’ she teases. ‘I like the way that my bed is looking over your boots, and them bell-bottoms I wear make walking out hard to do.’

Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion record (pictured) is the rapper’s sixth studio album (pictured: Post Malone performs in Times Square on July 18)

Post Malone’s latest album of bad-luck tales and hard- drinking songs

On California Sober, a duet with Stapleton, he picks up a female hitchhiker who steals his wallet, while M-E-X-I-C-O, sung with bluegrass star Billy Strings, begins with him dating a diplomat’s daughter from Brooklyn. After a series of entertaining scrapes, he ends up in a Mexican jail.

The nine-track Long Bed bonus  album opens with songs of a darker hue, however. Dead At The Honky Tonk is the tale of a heartbroken lover who drinks himself into an early grave, while Killed A Man is a classic murder ballad — that’s two bodies in the first three songs.

But the mood then lightens, with Back To Texas a celebration of his home state, and Ain’t How It Ends a tribute to the art of writing a country tune.

Might any of his lead characters live happily ever after? ‘That ain’t how it ends in a country song,’ he concludes, rounding off a sprawling, but spirited, love letter to Nashville.