Post Malone’s country album is here. Its reception is damning.

In the 1997 romp Spice World, a producer commends the Spice Girls on their run-through of a song by saying, “That was absolutely perfect—without being actually any good.” There, it was an ironic dig about how little the girl-power-peddling Brit quintet cared about the no-fun opinions of supposed experts. But when the line popped into my mind this weekend while I was listening to Post Malone’s long-anticipated country crossover album F-1 Trillion, it was less as punchline than as straight description. F-1 Trillion was a certified crossover success even before it came out, given that its lead single “I Had Some Help,” featuring Morgan Wallen, since it came out in May has become not only the year’s most successful country song, but the biggest song of the summer, and possibly of all of 2024. He’s also become a father, the inspiration for possibly the least appealing song on F-1 Trillion, “Yours.” Addressed to his daughter’s imaginary future husband almost as if the guy were a romantic rival, it serves a degree of daddy-daughter possessive ick rarely seen since Bob Carlisle’s 1997 embarrassment “Butterfly Kisses.” Before this one was set loose, someone should have looked at the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend satire of this subgenre, “I Love My Daughter.” Congrats to Posty, I suppose, on going so authentically country that he even mirrors some of its worst tendencies. “Ain’t How It Ends” is like what country might have become if it had followed Taylor Swift’s stylistic lead instead of lapsing into the tropes of bro country in the 2010s.