So, this is what passes for a big live music show now
Pop Post Malone O2 Arena, London SE10 ★★★★★
Post Malone is the biggest star in popular music now. He’s a hairy slob who looks like a mangled Spitting Image puppet of Mick Hucknall to whom someone has added facial tattoos, and sounds like a computer-generated Ed Sheeran karaoke-rapping to Drake tracks with the autotune dialled up to 11.
Last year, the American rapper had the world’s biggest-selling album, scored a succession of number one singles, and notched up billions of streams. He is the kind of phenomenon likely to make you feel ancient and out of touch if you have lived long enough to reach, say, your mid-twenties.
Fortunately for him, most of his audience don’t appear to have hit that landmark yet. On the first of two sold-out nights at London’s O2 Arena, Malone arrived on stage in a storm of dry ice and pyrotechnic explosions. Dressed in what looked like a brocaded silk pyjama bowling outfit, he stalked a catwalk, growling along to backing tracks, his voice so heavily processed it barely sounded human.
The production and lighting were moody and impressive, while lasers and spotlights flashed and probed. There were so many phones filming the action, they were effectively an alternative light source, imbuing the arena floor with a soft white glow.
This is what passes for a stateof-the-art live music now: one man and his backing tracks being simultaneously watched through thousands of tiny screens.
“Thank you very fuggin’ much, ladeez ’n gentlemen,” Malone declared after almost every song, Clearly, his repartee is as limited as his entire oeuvre.
All of Malone’s songs bubble along on mid-tempo loops in minor keys, with nursery rhyme melodies and ropy sing-song raps. There is a lot of made-up slang and expletives, but the gist of his lyrical message is how miserable life is now that he’s rich and famous, so he’s just going to have to go and get drunk with his homies, pick up some derogatorily denoted women and smash things up.
If it sounds like you have heard it all before, well that seems to be the point. It is essentially copycat mumble-rap with a side order of sensitive singer-songwriter and a streak of Emo self-torture, hedonistic anthems for an angstridden generation who can’t even have a good time unless they’ve got something to feel miserable about. In which case, Malone is the perfect man for the job.