“Chemical” is Post Malone’s first music release of the year and follows his chart-topping fourth studio album Twelve Carat Tooth. Arriving in time to soundtrack one of the biggest music festivals, Coachella, “Chemical” could well be the tune we hear when walking down the streets this summer.
The pop-rock song finds Posty incredibly missing the love he shared with an ex to the extent he doesn’t want to move on. “Oxytocin makin’ it all okay / When I come back down, it doesn’t feel the same / Now I’m sittin’ ’round, waitin’ for the world to end all day / ‘Cause I couldn’t leave you if I tried,” he sings in the acoustic-laden first verse. The chorus is made memorable with repeated lines and a catchy tune that’s almost in contrast to the somber message the song bears.
Along the line, it’s almost like he’s accepting the fact that he and his ex have broken up when he sings, “I ain’t tryna find fate, it’s too late to save face / I can’t get away, maybe there’s no mistakes (Maybe there’s no mistakes).”
The song was officially teased on Wednesday, April 12, when he shared a 15-second clip with fans on Twitter in a tweet that revealed the exact release date of the song. The following Thursday, Posty followed the music announcement with a snap of himself smoking in a car – a line from the chorus perfectly explains why he did this – shared on Instagram. He captioned the post with the sweet words, “A big cheers to all my big special gamers out there. Please listen to my new song tonight at midnight. I love you.”
“Chemical” is accompanied by a music video that opens with Posty smoking in a car. At some point he gets out, leaving viewers to figure out that he’s actually on a set. The rest of the video sees him dancing while singing about his sorrows.
In 2022, Posty chatted with Billboard about receiving pressure from his label to release as many songs as possible to boost his streams. “Trying to shove 20 to 25 songs, it doesn’t work. Talking to the label [it’s like], ‘Oh, if you have less songs, you’re not going to stream as much,’ but the whole thing is that you don’t want to compromise your art and your gut vibe on anything,” he said. “I’ve made a lot of compromises, especially musically, but now I don’t feel like I want to anymore. I don’t need a No. 1; that doesn’t matter to me no more, and at a point, it did.”