The Singles Jukebox

Now holding the distinct honor of being runner-up to “Bodak Yellow” for three weeks in a row!

[Video][Website]
[4.57]

Crystal Leww: Right as Cardi B was making noise for being the first woman since Iggy Azalea to go #1 with a rap single, Post Malone was quietly holding the Triple Streaming Crown (credit to David Turner for that one) — #1 on the Spotify, Apple Music, and Soundcloud charts. The dude is very popular, and “Rockstar” reminds me so much of “Studio,” the 2014 Schoolboy Q song that was everywhere on rap radio that year. This basically exists in the background without offending, but it also doesn’t make much of an impression either. It will be wildly successful, and I will always change the channel when it comes on and I’m driving.
[3]

Julian Axelrod: If anyone should be celebrating their unlikely pop stardom, it’s these guys: a silky-voiced scumbag who looks like Spring Breakers‘ Alien getting bar mitzvah’d and a dead-eyed, monotone murderer who makes no concessions toward rap’s weirdo vanguard. Both rappers have had a truly bizarre rise to fame, and you can’t begrudge them for wanting to bask in their success. But you can definitely begrudge them for doing so in the most boring way imaginable. This sounds like Savage and Malone read Motley Crue’s The Dirt, skipped all the interesting parts, then recorded their verses without ever saying a word to each other. The song is hypnotic in its simplicity, to the point where I find myself singing it throughout the day to the tune of, say, a rusty air conditioner. It’s not their best work, but it does its job. After all, it’s not like these guys became famous for nothing.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Self-pity over echo.
[3]

Hazel Robinson: I mean, it’s got the cover art I’d associate with the early work of a band that became suddenly huge circa nu metal and a bit of the sound — it’s hard to tell if this is deliberately, hypnotically looping or just a bit low on ideas. However, I’m listening to it in the office while working late; if I were hearing this in a club after six white wines, would I be freaking OUT about how good it was to dance to? Heck yes, I would. Drunk me did the scoring.
[7]

Stephen Eisermann: This has the makings of a good track, but my god these lyrics are bad. Post Malone comes across as a middle-schooler bragging to his friends about being able to attend a high school party, but less in the endearing way and more in the oh-my-god-stfu kind of way. It’s jarring and beneath him, especially considering the track itself is a cool, laid back composition, and his voice has just enough Auto-Tune applied that he actually sounds… well, cool. It’s a shame, then, that these terrible lyrics bring down an otherwise interesting production.
[4]

Anthony Easton: I have nostalgia when rockstars were supposed to be having fun, and not nearly this misanthropic, ennui dripping boredom, all the pills downers, and all the sex mostly chemical — it might be political if they were smart enough.
[5]

Ryo Miyauchi: Post Malone pours one out for Bon Scott, but spiritually, “Rockstar” should light one more for Kurt Cobain, because there’s no glamor to be heard in Malone’s antics. He has debts to a few more icons: his hazy party rap scrubs away any thrills in recreational drug use like Future’s Dirty Sprite 2; his Auto-Tuned declaration as rock star has nothing against Lil Uzi Vert’s. And like those two rappers, the lifestyle just sounds like an exhausting charade of recklessness after the next.
[5]