Post Malone’s rise to hip-hop stardom has been a rapid and turbulent journey. In a short period of time, he went from writing songs in his bedroom to sparking conversations about cultural appropriation and producing hits whose breezy hooks refuted accusations of inauthenticity and a veiled intention to use rap as a platform for further fame. The beer pong and Magic: The Gathering The enthusiast’s relatable struggles with the topic of heartbreak provided the fuel for far-reaching heroic deeds, such as playing a Hootie & the Blowfish song in a Pokémon Company advertising campaign and a guest appearance on Beyoncé’s show And Taylor Swift albums. But F-1 billionPost Malone’s sixth album, is realizing a dream he has had for a long time. “WHEN I TURN 30, I WILL BE A COUNTRY/FOLK SINGER,” he tweeted in 2015. trillion comes after a long soaking up of the landscape, evident in the now 29-year-old star’s leisurely transition from wearing Tyler Childers T-shirts to working with legends of the form. The album is a powerful slice of sophisticated pop-country that is a testament to how Post works and the freedom he enjoys in the white male pop milieu he represents.

Post’s foray into country music benefits from a number of favorable circumstances: a strong year for the genre on the Hot 100, a massive influx of folk and Americana projects from artists not previously known for that stuff, and the restructuring of once-trap-heavy bro-country into party rock. trillion plunges into a genre filled with tales of dramatic changes of heart. “I wrote songs about sins, bad women, pills and cars,” Post reflects on “Right About You.” “I wrote songs about drinking until you came in and raised the bar / But who am I to write rock bottom from the highs you took me to?” In a workshop with Post’s favorite producer and co-writer Louis Bell and Morgan Wallen collaborator Charlie Handsome (who worked on 2016’s “Right About You”) Stony), the new songs feature a slew of country songwriters who’ve written tracks for Jason Aldean, Kane Brown, and Luke Bryan, as well as a barrage of guest verses and co-writes from the likes of Luke Combs and Brad Paisley. Nashville house style trumps idiosyncrasies in a catalog that ranges from emo rap to folk and synth pop. Country is a vehicle for expressing the joy of the comfort of companionship; a wonderful excuse to coax a weed anthem out of Chris Stapleton and a sex jam out of Dolly Parton; an outlet for a stealth-wearing Utah dad to get domesticated instead of counting money and problems. But Post’s reverent take on pop-country ends up inheriting the subgenre’s baggage.

Like Wallen’s albums, trillion runs longer than the versatility at hand justifies. The lyrics and melodic sensibilities seem so focused on their future radio format that you no longer feel Post’s character. It’s illuminating to see him adapt to the guidelines of another genre, heading straight for the most mathematically marketable sound. “I Had Some Help” is the epitome of an uptempo “Hot Country Songs” meteor, a rock song that features just enough fiddle and pedal steel to silence nervous program directors and awards judges. If you quietly slid “Pour Me a Drink” co-star Blake Shelton into the driver’s seat for this album, you wouldn’t immediately notice the pen of a guy who had great chemistry with Migos. You’d think Blake loves God, Gwen and drinking beer. The determination expressed in Post Malone’s throwback collides with clean, serene tones and resolutions, making you wonder why writers like Jason Isbell, who sings from experience about bridging the distance between past and present selves, or Sturgill Simpson, whose career is a miraculous rebound from a military career that didn’t work out, weren’t brought to the spacious support staff table. Post Malone knows his stuff, so you have to assume he did He turned his album around to kill two birds with one stone with a 12-gauge gunfight, redesigned his job to focus on the newfound stability in his personal life, and took the plunge he’d always wanted in the way that would make him the most money.

F-1 Billion: Long Bedthe deluxe edition of quick hits, adds nine more tracks, making it an unwieldy 27, but improves the batting average by reducing it. Malone foregoes familiar guests and soothing results for a while, delivering a vision of the more sophisticated, weirder album he can deliver. As with The Tormented Poets Section: The Anthologywhich lifts the veil of borderline overproduction, reveals a songwriter who doesn’t need slick, stifling structure to resonate, but also underscores the intentionality of the decision to work with polish elsewhere. The best genre exercises lie deepest. “Killed a Man” is Post’s “Turn the Page”; the lilting, lascivious “Go to Hell” weaves threads of love and faith more deftly than the main album’s aggressively jaunty “Devil I’ve Been.” Stick with it for 80 minutes, and it eventually begins to feel like distinctly Texas country music, as “Who Needs You” strikes a Western swing tune that no of pop artists dabbling in country would bother. But the opening lineup of Tim McGraw, Hank Williams Jr., Morgan Wallen and Blake Shelton – steely rock stompers who set a pace punctuated only by ballads that feel just as busy as the louder songs – gives the album a languid momentum and a samey that it struggles to break through. It does away with gems like the beautiful “Two Hearts,” the album’s 25th track and the rare moment when trillion avoids a cumbersome arrangement. Equally frustrating is the decision to fill the album with well-known mass-produced material.

As intentional as trillion focuses on CMT Hot 20 Countdown–core, it’s also notable that most of the people involved are white and already country famous. Why weren’t his other friends at the party? Where were Swae Lee and 21 Savage? In the world where Country Billy was making a few millis and Solange, Beyoncé and Lil Nas X were launching cowboy couture movements, it’s fascinating that Post Malone — who has increasingly demonstrated his ability to work in beat-based and acoustic situations over the past five years, releasing songs with Youngboy Never Broke Again — And Noah Kahan hatched such a regimented game last year alone. But he wouldn’t be the only one adopting a more subdued public image this year in the name of Democratic infiltration. (Though he will likely be the only former hip-hop chart star to release back-to-back songs with Morgan Wallen. And Hank Williams Jr., both of whom have insulted the black community, and whose stars helped give Post the notoriety he needed to land these collaborations.) Some people are better at breaking chains, others are better at building connections. trillion proves Post Malone’s prowess as a country superstar, but suggests he believes he has to put certain aspects of his art on hold to stay ahead in that field. It’s both a reasonable reaction for someone who learned to distance himself after his early love of Future and Bob Dylan songs made people see through him, but it’s also a fulfillment of early predictions from his critics that he would give up rap once the winds changed. Lumbering recent work from guests like Wallen, ERNEST and HARDY are the obvious precursors to this album. But it’s hard not to think of Cowboy Carterthe fearlessly imperfect pivot that Post appeared on earlier this year, where an R&B-pop shapeshifter splashed through several varied and colorful permutations of country music in roughly the same amount of time trillion spends a lot of time painting everything Solo Cup red. Malone has dug himself so deep into the songwriting machine of mainstream country that he’s come out with a sound that feels prefabricated and indistinct, and that’s surprising for someone whose best and worst work has always felt like a genuine extension of often divergent interests.