Is Post Malone’s venture into country music the key to winning his first Grammys?
It’s hard to tell how much the recording academy loves Post Malone, but at the very least they seem to like him a lot. He hasn’t actually won an award yet, but he’s regularly nominated in top categories. Now the genre-hopping artist is entering uncharted territory: country music. Will it be his ticket to a win?
Malone has two previous Grammy nominations for Album of the Year: “Beerbongs and Bentleys” in 2019 and “Hollywood’s Bleeding” in 2021. He’s also one of the few artists in history to receive three consecutive noms for Record of the Year: “Rockstar” featuring 21 Savage in 2019, “Sunflower” with Swae Lee in 2020 and “Circles” in 2021. Rounding out his impressive general field track record is a Song of the Year bid for “Circles” in 2021. In all, the eclectic artist has been nominated 10 times, including genre bids in pop and rap categories. Alas, no victories as of yet.
But the country categories could be his chance to score his first trophies. His new album “F-1 Trillion” features collabs with a who’s-who of country stars ranging from Dolly Parton to Jelly Roll. So he seems to have been warmly embraced by industry stalwarts in the genre, giving him a chance in Best Country Album. “F-1 Trillion” has also been embraced by listeners, with first week figures of 250,000 equivalent album units, enough to top the Billboard 200.
However, there’s another pop star looking to invade the country categories: Beyonce with her critically acclaimed “Cowboy Carter.” That album is such a melange of genre influences that there’s no guarantee at the moment that it will end up in the Best Country Album race, but it was a number-one hit on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, and one of its lead singles, “Texas Hold ‘Em,” led the Hot Country Songs chart in addition to the Hot 100. At the very least, we can expect songs from her sprawling 27-track album to compete for country plaudits.
Malone’s best chance for a trophy might then be Best Country Duo/Group Performance for his chart-topping single “I Had Some Help” featuring Morgan Wallen. If nominated, the crossover hit is likely to be by far the most popular song in the category, just like last year’s winner “I Remember Everything” by Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves. And we’ve seen other country outsiders win Grammys in this category thanks to duets: Pentatonix won for “Jolene” with Parton in 2017, Justin Bieber won for “10,000 Hours” with Dan and Shay in 2021.
One roadblock for Malone might be that the Grammys like him a lot more than his duet partner. Wallen has never been nominated for a Grammy. Even when he had the biggest hit of the year from any genre, 2023’s “Last Night,” the Grammys nominated the songwriters but not Wallen. It’s possible Wallen has been poisoned in voters’ eyes by the 2021 incident when he was caught on video using a racial slur.
Other industry awards groups like the ACMs and CMAs seem to have forgiven him after initially banning him from recognition, at least in part. But Grammy voters tend to be more progressive; for instance, they stood by The Chicks even after their criticism of George W. Bush got them exiled from the more right-wing country community. So maybe the recording academy still holds a grudge against the controversial musician.
But you never know. Maybe voters are ready to make nice, which would be good news for Post Malone.