Stars 1.5/5
Post Malone has had his fair share of brand deals and collaborations, but his most recent project may be the weirdest one yet. Malone has partnered with the Pokémon franchise for its 25th anniversary.
To celebrate this occasion, Malone did a virtual concert experience and released a Hootie and the Blowfish cover, and I literally have no words. When I first heard about this collaboration it made me scratch my head a bit and wonder why it was happening, but I thought it would be good considering I’m a fan of Malone’s work. I was wrong.
The virtual concert experience was an awful 13-minute acid trip. It starts with a 10-second countdown and a stage that has famous Pokémon characters just floating around. I don’t know what I expected to happen. When the countdown was over, Malone appeared to have come out to perform, but it was just a cartoon version of him.
I watched Malone do a virtual concert for a Bud Light on New Year’s in Vegas, and it was actually good. I get that Pokémon is a video game, but I didn’t want to watch a cartoon version of Malone prance around mushrooms with smiley faces.
Malone’s cover of Hootie and the Blowfish’s “Only Wanna Be With You” wasn’t that great either. I think it starts off too slow and has these weird bubble-like video game noises in the intro that make it sound like a song for babies. I get that they were trying to bring in the Pokémon aspect to the cover, but it really doesn’t sound right. I think I really would’ve liked this cover more if it was made normally. The cover art and the title tell you it’s for Pokémon’s 25th anniversary. Because of this, I don’t think adding cheesy video game noises was necessary.
I won’t rip on this cover completely. I enjoyed Malone’s vocals, and I’ve been really into the original version of the song lately, so it made me excited regardless. Another thing I liked was how Malone changed up the lyrics a little to match his personality. In the original song, Hootie and the Blowfish lead singer Darius Rucker says, “I’m such a baby ‘cause the Dolphins make me cry.” In this lyric, he’s alluding to the Florida football team. In Malone’s cover, he sings the same lyrics but replaces Dolphins with the Cowboys. Considering the Dallas’ Cowboys most recent season, I’d probably cry too.
Overall, I just don’t really know why this collaboration happened. I understand the concert had to be virtual because of the pandemic, but I didn’t need a virtual, cartoon version of Post Malone singing with Charizard. The vocals sounded live, but I really don’t know if they were considering I never really saw Post Malone in person. I’m not saying it was the worst PR move Post Malone has ever made, but I am saying I think his career would’ve been just fine without it. It was a fun idea, but Malone should really just stick to brand deals with Doritos and Bud Light.
