Post Malone - Twelve Carat Toothache

Post Malone started this record in the spring of 2020, stuck at home like everyone else, and told an interviewer he had gone a little crazy and wanted to push past his comfort zone. Two years of sessions later, the result is the least triumphant album of his career and, by his own account, the closest to what he was actually feeling.

The subject is fame and what it costs. Where earlier records treated excess as a punchline, this one sits inside the hangover, unusually plain-spoken about self-doubt and burnout. "Love/Hate Letter to Alcohol," with Fleet Foxes lending harmony to what is essentially a confession, is the clearest statement of purpose. Elsewhere the mood lifts: "I Like You (A Happier Song)" is a genuinely sunny duet with Doja Cat, "One Right Now" pairs him with The Weeknd over cold electro-funk, and "Cooped Up" brings in Roddy Ricch. Gunna and The Kid LAROI turn up as well across a lean forty-three minutes, his shortest album.

Critics were divided, some finding it his most sonically interesting and emotionally honest work, others hearing an artist in transition and not yet landed. Both readings are fair, and the friction between them is a large part of what makes the record worth returning to. It debuted at number two and set up the sharp left turn he would take a year later on Austin.

This double-LP edition is pressed on marbled vinyl in a gatefold jacket via Mercury and Republic.