Post Malone surprises fans with a brand-new song Chrome Heartbreaker at the FIFA World Cup final opening show
The singer opened with an unreleased track before reuniting with Swae Lee for Sunflower
Dubai: Cowboy hat on, tattoos out, football's biggest night about to kick off, and Post Malone decided this was the moment to premiere something nobody had heard before.
His closing ceremony set ran three songs deep. He opened with a track that hasn't been released anywhere yet, called "Chrome Heartbreaker", giving the MetLife Stadium crowd, and the global broadcast audience watching along with them, a first listen before it's available anywhere else. It's a bold choice for a stage this size. Most headliners at events of this scale tend to lean on familiar hits to keep a stadium singing along, but Malone used one of football's biggest nights to debut new material instead, the same restless streak that's taken him from "White Iverson" to a full country album in under a decade.
He closed the set with "Sunflower", his 2018 collaboration with Swae Lee from the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse soundtrack. The song went on to become the highest-certified single in RIAA history, and remains one of the most recognisable tracks of Malone's career.
For the performance, he brought out Swae Lee himself, reuniting the pair on stage for a song they haven't performed together in years. Longtime fans will remember the two go further back than just the one hit, Swae Lee opened for Malone on his Runaway Tour, so this felt less like a random cameo and more like old friends picking up where they left off.
IShowSpeed also opened the ceremony dressed in all white, backed by dancers in colourful tracksuits, performing "World Cup (Champions)", a song that name-checks all 48 teams from the tournament in its lyrics. He wrapped the performance as fireworks and smoke shot out around the stadium, closing out his segment before Post Malone took over.
In a livestream before the final, Speed revealed that FIFA had called him directly to secure the rights to the track, admitting he initially thought it was a prank call, and telling his audience that performing at the World Cup final "is probably one of my most craziest achievements."
