Post Malone has never been an artist that I liked. I couldn't get into "White Iverson" or any other of his songs. His music has never interested me enough personally to write about it, but the praise he's gotten for his recent cover of Kanye West's "Heartless" I needed to address.
Malone's cover of Ye's classic song off his game changer album "808s & Heartbreak" is an extreme disservice to the song's legacy. Post Malone's acoustic cover opens up painfully shaky. He always goes up in octave at the start of the hook and each verse, so to me his voice sounded incredibly unstable when you mix that with his already unorthodox style of singing. "Heartless" is a very painful and emotionally intense song, yet somehow most of it is taken away. I never heard that much emotion attached to the cover and it never made me feel anything inside myself. Post Malone's cover just felt like an attempt at a cover. He wasn't able to spin it and make the song his own, instead, he tried to perform it with as much resemblance to the original as he could. But the way he had the cover paced worked against him. There are times where Post Malone attempts to put a spin on the song by holding notes longer or again going up in octave, but it is overly ambitious and his lack of vocal range and strength kills him. I know he isn't a singer technically but if you're going to attempt a song that demands a lot to pull off well, then there has to be more. And Post did not have it. I read Post Malone has other covers of Bob Dylan songs but truthfully, this was enough for me. I'll stick with the original "Heartless" and if I want to hear a good cover there's always Kris Allen's version and even The Fray's cover. So Post can have this back.
Check out Post Malone's cover here, The Fray and Kris Allen's covers and the original below.
Lead Photo Cred: chicago.riotfest.org
Video Cred: youtube.com
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