Sunday Music: A$AP Rocky Goes Post-Rap on "PUNK ROCKY"

We were all excited for A$AP Rocky to show up on SNL. As a modern artiste, and yes - he gets the “e” on the end, even if what he does isn’t always my favorite, it’s never not interesting. I was especially hoping he’d do “PUNK ROCKY” on the show, which was one of the early-release signals, because it’s just so moody and I had been digging on it for the week reading up.

So my wife were on the couch, on Sunday (we don’t stay up to watch SNL, come on now) and we are like, “Thundercat? Yeah. Wow. And - who is, google it, it’s… Danny f******* Elfman!?!”

If you’re in my age range, or just a huge music nerd, that mix of people on stage together is a very, very special thing to witness. And even if the performance was a little canned and odd, those guys all together is super cool and exciting.

With the full album, Don’t Be Dumb, dropping the same week, AND the Elfman appearance, I couldn’t get any of this out of my head. I did the deeper researching and reading (and so did my wife, which lead to some fun text exchanges) about Tim Burton’s influence on the record, and the near-miss for Morrissey as a collaborator.

The more I’ve stewed on it, the more I’ve convinced myself that this is a Factory Records moment for 2026. There’s a cool party in town, and not for the traditionally cool kids, but back to that artiste idea. I think Rocky is haunting his former underground rap self, and doing it one of the cooler ways we’ve seen anyone attempt to do this.

Post-punk deserves some love right now. Because it didn’t mean, or at least I don’t take it to mean “after punk” so much as punk that was around long enough to become a cartoon of itself, so the new version had to both give up the ghost and then become the ghost that could go back and haunt the people still holding onto the past.

Punk “broke” in ‘76-’77. Post-punk starts pretty quickly in ‘79-’80 (and these are very general and broad terms here, so, chill). The speed, the riffs, the immediacy, the fighting urge - it all morphs pretty quickly. If the goal is to be alternative, then once everything is fast, riff heavy, urgent, and confrontational, you have to become slower, ambient, architectural, and standoffish.

Which is exactly what happened when you compare Sex Pistols to New Order or even early Clash to later Clash.

So when I say the new A$AP Rocky feels post-rap, I don’t mean it’s no longer rap, I just mean he’s doing to his own music, all the way back from 2011 until now, what post-punk did to punk in the late ‘70s into the early ‘80s.

What are you hearing in “PUNK ROCKY” though?

I know what I’m hearing. I’m hearing some Joy Division. I’m hearing some of The Cure. I’m hearing Morrissey. All at once. In a cool way.

The “Love Will Tear us Apart” angle is the song’s a clinical look at a collapsing relationship. Musically, it’s the kind of wall paper you get lost in. It’s very numb and (era appropriate) warehouse rave bouncy. The melodies are beautiful, the lyrics are devastating, and the dynamics are flat.

The Cure angle is probably “A Forest.” The whole “Looking for someone who may not exist” thing is incredible imagery. And listen to the guitars and the mix on this. The whole song feels like a forest inside of your own head. They were kings of the anti-riff and even if this is not my thing, I love knowing that somebody like Rocky is drawn to using it. It’s a feeling alright.

Which leaves us with The Smiths/Morrissey. Yes, the collaborator that got away. Yes, the one that I’m frankly kinda glad got away because I just never got that into him and people are aghast when I say it but it’s true. I love how much Morrissey loved the New York Dolls and glam but - give me glam and not his version of interpolation any day. Anyway.

Can self-pity be a style? Morrissey says yes. Can Romantic misery be pop theater? That’s the glam thing I guess and, yes again! Is the only sensible thing to do with all of these emotions to make it even more stylized and stylish? You already know it. “Everyday Is Like Sunday” is stuck in my head now. Damnit.

“Punk Rocky” has all of this rolled up in it. The main character in the song is betting to not be emotionally destroyed. It’s got a hip-hop informed looping quality that feels very mid-tempo wall paper, without ever losing the lost in the woods drama, and of course, makes feeling terrible highly fashionable.

“I wanna fall in love / don’t want no broken heart / don’t wanna grow apart” is devastatingly emotional and flat, all at once. Pretty genius candidly. Pretty Burton/Elfman on all the levels too. The video is even more wild after thinking this out, for the record:

Now, I don’t know if any of those songs actually influenced Rocky for this. I do know he was on the record in 2018 claiming he wanted to “f*** with Morrissey, on some Smiths s***.” Which is adorable. He even called it “emo, real, retro-infusion” back then and, much like a fashion-oriented artiste, this is 1000% understandable.

An early rumor about a song called “Hood Happy” teased a Morrissey feature but it got cut from the final album. I guess we’ll never know. On my own listen, I really don’t think Rocky needed him, and the final product might be better because of it. You can’t out-Morrissey Morrissey, so Rocky getting the space to don that personality, even if most directly on one song (and very indirectly on a host of others) is kind of liberating.

I’ll probably getting myself in trouble with a claim as big as post-rap, but I do think this label, as a process, is useful and applicable here. The new A$AP Rocky isn’t bars heavy. There’s way more flow/texture. There’s way less immediacy and way more atmospherics. There’s lots of steady pulses even if songs are segmented in funny ways. You can’t deny the rapper DNA, but you also can’t deny how not rap of 10 or 20 or 30 years ago it is. Kind of like rock and punk rock and post-punk all feel so related but distant. And just like post-punk fans in 1980 who wanted something new, Rocky, and hopefully his fans from 2011 forward, want something new from him in 2026.

Maybe my favorite thing here is I’m digging for these details. It’s like the Beyonce and Kendrick (and yes, Taylor Swift) homework assignment listening, but the sourcing list feels cooler. This is only possible in the modern era, right? The research and direction and influence has to come from access to this stuff.

The thread between all of these artists is how the process from input to output always confers ownership. Virgil Abloh would be proud. There’s 3% change here and then some, but you can never forget what the functional source is.

If “Love Will Tear Us Apart” sounds like a dying relationship in 1980 Manchester, and “A Forest” is the dream you have reflecting back on it, and “Everyday Is Like Sunday” is your own personal god-complex pity party, you are ready to contextualize “PUNK ROCKY” in an aging hip hop artiste’s career.

I kinda want more of this now. A lot more of it. I want new takes on Joy Division and The Cure. I’ll even accept new Morrissey so long as it it’s not too much like old Morrissey. Yeah, I said it.

Is A$AP Rocky getting better with age? I don’t know. I know I’m still interested though, and in a way, that counts as better in my 44-year-old brain-book. In the way post-punk haunted punk, this post-rap haunting of not just his own career but the entire genre is refreshing. There’s no revival here, there’s no repetition, it’s just cool music. I want more of this level of creativity across dimensions in my life.

ps. I’m obligated - all hail the Meatmen. Because any time I talk about Morrissey this gets automatically stuck in my head.