Mac Miller - Swimming in Circles

From carefree youthful fun to the melancholy that comes with the end of adolescence, worsened by drug addiction and depression. Mac Miller's story was tragically short, and it contradicted the expectations of those who had watched him debut as a cocky, very young artist, full of the contagious, slightly shallow joy typical of a fifteen-year-old: he seemed destined for a career of pop-rap hits, a kind of white counterpart to his friend Wiz Khalifa, moving between parties and marijuana, sex and hedonistic consumerism. Instead, his lightning-fast rise to the mainstream, which peaked with the huge success of Blue Slide Park (2011), was followed by a substantial rethinking of his approach to music, driven by major changes in his personal life.

With bitter irony, it was precisely the worsening of his substance dependency, the process of working through that pain, and the difficulty of overcoming the pitfalls of drugs that transformed Mac Miller's writing: party life gave way to introspection, and he moved from anthemic singles made for college nights to reflections on life, relationships and death. Alongside this shift, the beats also evolved from his earliest releases, incorporating more jazz and soul, ideal sonic companions for more emotional, aching compositions, while also engaging in dialogue with the aesthetics of psychedelic music.

Mac Miller, born Malcolm James McCormick on January 19, 1992 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was one of the most influential, celebrated and discussed American rappers, singers and record producers of his generation. He died of an overdose in 2018, at just 26 years old.

"Kool Aid & Frozen Pizza": from childhood to K.I.D.S.

Raised in a family with a Jewish father and a Christian mother, he an architect and she a photographer, Mac Miller studied in Pittsburgh while teaching himself to play piano, guitar, drums and bass. He got into rap at 14, and by 15 it was practically the only thing occupying his days. As Easy Mac he released his first mixtape, But My Mackin' Ain't Easy (2007). Together with fellow Pittsburgh native Beedie, he also formed the duo Ill Spoken, active just long enough to release How High (2008).

Having renamed himself Mac Miller, the nickname that would stick for good, he released two more youthful mixtapes in 2009: The Jukebox: Prelude To Class Clown and The High Life. The production and rhymes of his debut are still basic, as you'd expect from a teenager just starting out, and the only Ill Spoken mixtape is dominated above all by a sense of fun and self-assurance, but nothing essential to understanding the music of that period. These are youthful tracks that, for instance, take the opportunity to pay tribute to an icon like J Dilla on "Whatup Dilla", and don't yet seem conceived for a wide audience of listeners. The Jukebox: Prelude To Class Clown (2009) is only slightly more developed. Here, his prolific output serves well to explore the possibilities of his rap, but it doesn't make listening to the whole tracklist any easier.

The mixtape that changed his career is K.I.D.S. (Kickin' Incredibly Dope Shit) (2010), a perfect example of so-called frat rap. More than anything else, it's a fun and sincere album, to the point of naivety. "Kickin' Incredibly Dope Shit (Intro)" declares a love for music, a companion through the days of adolescence. For Mac Miller it would be the most important of his addictions, and perhaps the only positive one. Curiously, the track references the 1995 film directed by Larry Clark and written by Harmony Korine, "KIDS" (released in Italy as "KIDS – Monelli"), replacing the word pussy with music for comic effect.

When you're young, not much matters

When you find something that you care about, then that’s all you got

When you go to sleep at night, you dream of music

When you wake up, it’s the same thing

It's there in your face, you can't escape it

Sometimes when you're young

The only place to go is inside, that’s just it

Music is what I love

Take that away from me and I really got nothing

Even as it drifts through a relaxed melancholy — just listen to "Outside" — these songs describe a sweet, hedonistic, late-capitalist life. The sound can turn unexpectedly nocturnal and jazz-rap, as on "Nikes On My Feet", but a sense of well-being prevails. The high point of this positive energy is probably "The Spins" (with a crucial contribution from Empire of the Sun), an already-perfect piece of pop-rap. It's rivalled by the slightly vintage nursery-rhyme feel of "Knock Knock" (platinum-certified in the US).

The manifesto, though, is "Kool Aid & Frozen Pizza", a weed-soaked jazz-rap track that turns Nas's storytelling into a series of selfies of teenagers who grew up in the 2000s.

Yeah, I live a life pretty similar to yours

Used to go to school, hang with friends and play sports

Every single summer taking trips to the shore

And that was all gravy but I knew I wanted more

This mixtape changes Mac Miller's career and life, turning him into a touchstone especially for his own generation: it tells their story, leaning on the mainstream hip-hop he grew up listening to. It's not an album to look to for innovation or revolution, but a more modest snapshot of a certain slice of young American life, presented without filters or overstructure.

Success: from Best Day Ever to Macadelic.

The aftershock comes with the mixtape Best Day Ever (2011). The production is more varied, and the lyrics begin to show greater introspection while still describing everyday teenage life.

From the drumless intro of "Best Day Ever", with its dreamy mood, it's clear that things have changed and everything feels more ambitious. "Donald Trump" (platinum-certified at home) is the first hit, again a pop-rap nursery rhyme, but it's just as easy to find yourself humming the synth hook of "Oy Vey" or joining in on the little chorus of "Life Ain't Easy". A touch of soul appears on "I'll Be There" (featuring Phonte), while "Wake Up", a groove-driven dance track, mixes in some electronics.

Mac Miller has also grown as a rapper, as shown by "In the Air", a bedroom-electronic track over which he speeds up his rhymes. Clearly his adolescence is coming to an end too, but he can still allow himself to daydream, as he does on "Snooze": it carries the sweet melancholy of certain summer sunsets, the moment you realize the carefree days won't last much longer.

Now my clothes look cleaner, and my kicks look flyer

We be buyin' more reefer, so my crew gettin' high

Now the girls keep callin’, and the money keep comin’

I be jumpin’ off the bridge, but I’ma hit the ground runnin’

When the fuck will I wake up?

There's also no shortage of a stoner anthem like "Keep Floatin'" (featuring Wiz Khalifa) ("Passin' around the weed, no problems at all/ And you haters keep on hatin', I ain't talkin' to y'all").

The EP On And On And Beyond (2011) contains six tracks, only two of them new. More substantial is the mixtape I Love Life, Thank You (2011), released to celebrate reaching one million Twitter followers. It's a collection of upbeat tracks spread across 38 minutes, with only a few more reflective moments, such as "Family First" (feat. Talib Kweli).

The time is ripe for his official debut, his first album Blue Slide Park (2011), which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling over 144,000 copies in its first week. Despite the commercial success, the album received mixed reviews from critics, including the infamous Pitchfork takedown that gave it a catastrophic 1 out of 10. Over time it would go on to earn gold certification in both the US and Canada.

Opening with the melancholy "English Lane", the album nails a banger like "Party On Fifth Ave.", with its infectious horns and an almost crunk chorus. A more defined influence from the southern rap scene starts to emerge here, one that will fuel some of his liveliest tracks. But this joyful side is countered by the shadows of "PA Nights", where the fun seems to start revealing itself as something that, lived to the fullest, ends up burning out.

There's clearly an eye on hits here too, with tracks like the electro-rap of "Frick Park Market", the rainy-day vignette of "Under The Weather", or the college party pop-punk-rap of "Up All Night". It also reaches for a sprawling pop-jazz-rap sound on "Of The Soul", the best vocal performance on the whole album.

The album runs long and scatters its own energy, but at its best moments, it's one of the finest examples of pop-rap of the period. The closing "One Last Thing," slowed down to the point of dreaminess, nonetheless confirms that Mac Miller can attempt far more ambitious and creative solutions. We just have to wait.

Macadelic (2012) is a mixtape that marks an unexpected turn toward more psychedelic sounds and deeper lyrics, at times even delivered with poetic intensity. There are numerous collaborations, including Kendrick Lamar, Lil Wayne, Joey Bada$$, Sir Michael Rocks of The Cool Kids, Cam'ron and Juicy J.

Opened by the psychedelic haze of "Love Me As I Have Loved You," with female voices echoing in a dreamlike setting, it's an album that opens up to rock on "Desperado," with a synth standing in for a guitar, and finds a hit in the bombastic trap of "Loud," which is admittedly fairly generic (it will still go platinum in the United States).

Clouded by substances, the rap on "Vitamins" sounds muffled and dazed, and seems to dissolve entirely on "Fight The Feeling" (featuring Kendrick Lamar and Iman Omari). The overdose of sex and drugs on "Lucky Ass Bitch" (featuring Juicy J), a trap track with an elastic beat, is less original than the pensive "The Mourning After," as intense as a sorrowful surrender to despair.

Somethin’ ‘bout the pain makes me want more

Done a lotta drugs, never felt like this before

I hope one day it all makes sense

It'll all make sense

Introspection also takes center stage on "The Question" (featuring Lil Wayne) and in the disoriented echoes of "Angels (When She Shuts Her Eyes)," as well as on the subdued "Clarity."

Calling it experimental might be a bit of a stretch, but Macadelic is at the very least eccentric, and it bends Mac Miller's pop-rap through a lens that, more than psychedelic, sets to music a mix of drugs and excess, oscillating between overstimulation and depressive mood swings.

In late 2012 an EP also arrives, You, released under the name Larry Lovestein & The Velvet Revival, which veers toward lounge-jazz while retaining a strong psychedelic, hallucinated streak. There's even a somewhat amateurish instrumental jazz track. A curiosity for completists.

Maturity and the major-label debut: from "Watching Movies With The Sound Off" to "Faces"

In 2013, Mac Miller founds a record label, "REMember," named in honor of a late friend whose initials were, fittingly, R, E and M. He also becomes the star of a reality show, "Mac Miller And The Most Dope Family," on MTV2.

While waiting for a new album, the mixtape Run-On Sentences, Volume One (2013) arrives, made up entirely of instrumentals from his alter ego Larry Fisherman. It's a sandbox where Mac Miller's creative instincts lean toward often abstract, psychedelic beats, which also surface in other releases from this period (including Baloonerism, the posthumous album only released in 2025). He even shows up on an Ariana Grande song, "The Way." The two would later confirm they were in a relationship.

The ideas of Macadelic are rendered in a more mature form on Watching Movies With The Sound Off (2013), the first album to reveal the potential of the grown-up Mac Miller. The garish colors of his early days have given way to a palette of tenderness and melancholy, painting songs that, while anchored in a reflective brand of rap, aren't afraid to venture into other territory, recovering the hallucinatory suggestions, jazz references and elaborate arrangements of a certain chamber-pop. Mac Miller now sings, at times almost whispering, and is often far removed from the more frenetic, adrenaline-fueled rap of his early years.

Once again, the guests are numerous and heavyweight, including, among others, Earl Sweatshirt, Ab-Soul, Action Bronson, Schoolboy Q and Tyler, the Creator, while the production team includes Miller himself alongside Diplo, Tyler, the Creator, Flying Lotus, The Alchemist, Clams Casino, Earl Sweatshirt (in a double role, then), J. Hill, Chuck Inglish and Pharrell Williams.

The final tracklist was selected, according to the artist himself, from a pool of over 400 songs. The 16 chosen in the end represent different sides of his creativity and make the most of the production's high quality, often inventive and ever-shifting.

The psychedelic, slightly unsettling blues-rap of "The Star Room" ("Prayin' I don't waste it gettin' faded/ 'Cause I'm smokin' **** until I'm coughin' up tar"), the piano-driven nursery rhyme about migratory birds on "Avian", and the funereal, anxiety-ridden "I'm Not Real" (featuring Earl Sweatshirt) ("I'm not real, I think I never was", "If I go tomorrow, I just hope it ain't in vain, but I can't complain") set the overall tone of the album, lightened by the frantic beat that Flying Lotus brings to "S.D.S."

The fun of the past turns into a warping hallucination ("Bird Call", "Watching Movies"), while otherworldly tones often surface, as on "I Am Who Am (Killin' Time)" (featuring Niki Randa) or in the dedication to a dead friend on "REMember", where he raps:

It's a dark science when your friends start dyin'

Like, 'How could he go? He was part-lion'

Life goes on, the tears all dried and

Couple years are gone by by then, uh

Can you please help me find my friend?

I give you anything you need multiplied by ten

I heard he moved to a place where the time don’t end

So you don't need money, all you got is time to spend

Yeah, life’s short, don’t ever question the length

It's cool to cry, don't ever question your strength

I recommend no limits, intricate thought

Go 'head, just give it a shot, you'll remember shit you forgot

One of the central tracks of the album and of his whole discography is the aching rap of "Objects In The Mirror", which poses as a love song to actually talk about his addictions (as he revealed in an interview for Billboard). The chorus is touching in its dream of an impossible freedom:

Just a little taste and you know she got you

Can you hide away? Can you hide away?

Sound of silence as they all just watch you

I kinda find it strange how the times have changed

I wish we could go and beFree once, baby, you and me

We could change the world forever

And never come back againLet's leave it all in the rear-view

Let’s leave it all in the rear-view, girl

You don’t have to cry

You don’t have to cry

But it's the whole song that works in depicting the dissatisfaction, remorse and pain of addictions of every kind:

I promise that I’ll be a different man

Please give me the chance to go and live again

I'm havin' some trouble, can you give a hand?

It seems perfection really is so unattainable

After all, the idea of having reached one's limit, one step from death, also pervades the following "Red Dot Music" (featuring Action Bronson and Loaded Lux). After four minutes this track fades into silence, and it's hard not to read this too as a funereal reference, even though it precedes a comic skit.

The final stretch of the tracklist is solid but less surprising, even though the production remains very polished; still, the appearance of Jay Electronica on "Suplexes Inside Of Complexes And Duplexes", arriving seemingly just before the album's end, deserves full attention.

Regarded as one of his most mature works, the album debuted at number three on the Billboard 200, selling around 102,000 copies in its first week. Over time it would go on to earn RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) gold certification for half a million copies sold.

Meanwhile he even receives the keys to the city of Pittsburgh, complete with a proclamation declaring September 20, 2013 "Mac Miller Day". It's a hectic year, in which he also finds time to release, together with Vince Staples, the collaborative mixtape Stolen Youth, again using his producer alias Larry Fisherman, as well as a mixtape under yet another stage name, the self-titled Delusional Thomas.

Closing out the year comes his first and only live document, Live From Space.

If Stolen Youth is made unsettling by spectral sounds ("Fantoms" featuring Joey Fatts) and warped ones ("Heaven" featuring Hardo and Mac Miller himself on the mic), not to mention thriller-like lyrics ("Killin' Y'all" featuring Ab-Soul), the depressive, brief Delusional Thomas suffers from having its vocals filtered and pitched to the point of being unrecognizable: the problem isn't the idea itself, which if anything is in keeping with experimental hip-hop's stylistic tics, but rather the fatigue of hearing this device stretched across the entire mixtape, draining the enjoyment from tracks that are hallucinated, sincere narratives, where the jazz-rap Mac Miller loves is buried under manipulation and filters.

Live From Space is worth more as a document than as a piece of music: on stage, the funkier, rockier nature of many songs comes through, with Mac Miller often growling, at times almost screaming. It is, moreover, a half-live release, padded out with a few studio tracks. For completists.

Far more substantial is the most acclaimed mixtape born of this reckoning with his addictions and troubled mental health, Faces (2014). Critics praised its lyrical depth and the complexity of the production, cementing Mac's reputation as a versatile, thoughtful artist. Despite being billed as an "unofficial" release, with production handled directly by Mac Miller, it still rounds up a number of guests: Rick Ross, Earl Sweatshirt, Schoolboy Q, Mike Jones, Sir Michael Rocks, Vince Staples, Ab-Soul and Dash.

Often leaning into jazz-rap and shot through with psychedelic distortions, as in the disorienting, psychotic "Friends" (feat. Schoolboy Q) or the feverish religiosity of "It Just Doesn't Matter", it's an album that nods to the vivid, technicolor amalgam of OutKast ("Angel Dust"), while also brutally depicting the despair of a drug addict struggling with mental illness ("Malibu", "What Do You Do"), who even drifts into fantasizing about death ("Funeral", "Rain").

Wish I could get high, space migration

Pretend I could just fly to great vibrations

The magazines need a quote

When I'm gone, sorry, I don't leave a note, yo

He's also in great form as a rapper, as shown for instance in the abstract verse on "Polo Jeans" (feat. Earl Sweatshirt).

At times his creativity spills over into compositions that can genuinely be called experimental, like the bleak, hallucinatory gospel-rap of "Wedding", the psychedelic, voodoo-inflected blues-rap of "Ave Maria", or the ethereal, otherworldly jazz-rap of "Colors And Shapes" (incidentally, a song about suicide: "If I jump, let me fall").

Even though it runs past 90 minutes when counting the bonus track, Faces has few moments worth skipping and works beautifully as a multifaceted rap puzzle, one in which real and imagined, dream and nightmare, happiness and despair all blur together.

A dive into the mainstream: from “GO:OD AM” to “Swimming”

His third album, GO:OD AM (2015), is the first under a major label, Warner. It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold in the United States. Compared to Faces, this feels like a compromise with the market, diluting introspection and experimentation into doses of more hedonistic, immediate hip-hop. In other words, Mac Miller tries to satisfy those who already follow him while also selling his music to a mainstream audience.

The dreamy, nostalgic jazz-rap of “Two Matches” (feat. Ab-Soul) and the drunken rap of “Perfect Circle/ God Speed” are two examples of where this search for balance between expressing his own unease and his own creativity, and the demands of the label, can lead.

At other times, listeners are entertained by sophisticated pop-rap, like that of “Time Flies” with Lil' B, colorful but less memorable. There are also party tracks, such as the crunk of “In The Bag”, and a few more creative moments, like the emotional rap over the frantic beat of “Jump”.

The biggest hit single is the quintuple-platinum “The Weekend”, with Miguel, a dazed party-rap track, while the choral pop-rap of “100 Grandkids” also goes platinum. This time, though, the 70-minute total runtime feels excessive. The commercial results remain solid: it sells 73,000 copies in its first week and will go on, in 2018, to reach gold status for half a million copies sold in the United States.

Also in 2015, he releases the instrumental mixtape Run-On Sentences, Volume Two, again under the Larry Fisherman alias. The same remarks made about the first volume apply here.

His fourth official album, The Divine Feminine (2016), is a concept record exploring themes of love and femininity, marking a departure from his previous work. Once again, the guest list is impressive: Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak, CeeLo Green, Ty Dolla Sign, and pop star Ariana Grande, with whom Mac Miller was also romantically involved.

A shorter album with fewer tracks on the list, it is more emotional and sentimental, though the relationship theme doesn't always help it dodge cliché. Even the strings on “Congratulations” (feat. Bilal) sound like part of a well-worn language, and the lyrics are no less guilty of clichés (just listen to “Stay”). When sensuality unfolds through moans and saxophone, as on “Skin”, it confirms that this isn't his most creative album, not even in terms of production.

The single “Dang!” (feat. Anderson .Paak; platinum record) is instead an electronic funk track, not particularly original.

At least on “Cinderella” (feat. Ty Dolla Sign), the reference point becomes a certain kind of grandiose Seventies pop, getting lost amid orchestration and lysergic hallucinations.

It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling about 48,000 units in its first week (a significant drop compared to the previous album).

Swimming in circles: “Swimming”, “Circles”, “Baloonerism”

His fifth album, Swimming (2018), the last one released during his lifetime, received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap Album. It debuted at number three on the Billboard 200, selling about 66,000 units in its first week. Following his death, it will climb back up the charts. It will go on to achieve double platinum status at home, along with other notable results in Denmark, New Zealand, France and the United Kingdom.

Guests also include Dâm-Funk, Dev Hynes, Snoop Dogg, Syd, Thundercat and JID, although none of them appear in the official credits. Production is handled by Mac Miller himself, together with Jon Brion, Dev Hynes, J. Cole, ID Labs, Dâm-Funk, DJ Dahi, Tae Beast, Flying Lotus, Cardo and others.

Haunted by the theme of the end of his relationship with Ariana Grande, this is an album in which Mac Miller explores his emotional fragility without giving up the sensuality of The Divine Feminine. Melancholy and reflective from the drumless blues-pop opener "Come Back To Earth" onward, but also capable of the sophisticated soul-r'n'b-rap of "Perfecto", of a psychedelic pop-rap that morphs into mumble-rap on "Self Care", or of the dreamlike haze of "Wings", it's a multifaceted album from a rapper at the peak of his maturity, equally at home with very different shades of his sound.

Swimming is the album of the festive funk of "Ladders" (feat. Pomo and Nice Rec) and the plush, drowsy "Conversation, Pt. 1" (feat. Cardo, Yung Exclusive and Flying Lotus), of the choral r'n'b of "Jet Fuel" (feat. DJ Dahi and Steve Lacy), and of the almost liturgical closer "So It Goes", which quotes Kurt Vonnegut.

Tragically, it's precisely the ending of "So It Goes" that features in Mac Miller's last Instagram story, where he describes how the song's coda was meant to sound like "an ascension into Heaven".

His heirs begin working on the release of posthumous material in 2019, with a few collaborations on single tracks, but it's the first posthumous album, Circles, released in early 2021, that draws the most attention. It debuted at number three on the Billboard 200, selling around 164,000 units in its first week.

Reducing Circles to a mere tribute record would be ungenerous, because regardless of the funereal context in which it was born, it's a great example of pop-rap and neo-soul emotion.

Laying melancholy reflections over polished beats, the album strikes a balance between heartache and lightness, intimacy and poetry. It's a warm surrender to a set of songs written with the maturity of a narrator who never lets a plot twist steal the spotlight, preferring instead for each song to flow naturally into the next. A stream that is at times unmistakably pop ("Blue World", "Everybody"), at other times equally comfortable chewing on funk rhythms and r'n'b sensuality ("Complicated", "I Can See", "Woods"), whispering pensive raps ("Circles", "Good News"), or letting itself be drawn in by folk melodic carousels ("That's On Me") or blues ones ("Surf").

In this succession of pastel-colored emotions, the ending of "Hand Me Downs", with its solo of theremin-like whistles, is the ideal moment that brings a lump to the throat: Miller fences with a light touch here, and that's exactly why these thrusts of fragile melancholy land so movingly.

Then the inevitable happens: "Once A Day" ends and a terrible emptiness remains. The trance of listening gives way to reflection on the context. The human story, of course, but also the fact that Circles was meant to complete, together with Swimming, a single project, meant to stretch into a trilogy with a markedly more hip-hop ending.

Preceded by a few mixtape reissues, 2025 brings the second posthumous album, Baloonerism. Chronologically, it sits in the same period as Faces and picks up the psychedelic spirit of that stretch of the rapper's career, while revealing its most melancholy side. Already the subject of fan attention, having circulated online in unofficial versions over the years, it features a collaboration with SZA and the appearance of his alter ego Delusional Thomas.

The delicate work done on the material sought to preserve its original nature, without smoothing over too much the rough edges of songs that had not yet been finished at the time of the singer's death.

A brief introduction, and the liturgy of "DJ's Chord Organ" begins (featuring SZA; DJ stands for Daniel Johnston), seemingly emerging straight out of another world, amid angelic voices, before turning into a sensual, hallucinated funk-pop-rap with a funereal coda. It's a great way to introduce a multifaceted album that frequently shifts register and mood, revealing unexpected developments that bring very different aesthetics into contact: cloud rap with psych-rock, r'n'b with neo-soul, the most abstract rap with the most conscious and emo kind. It's also a refined, meticulous album, one that occasionally drifts back toward jazz ("5 Dollar Pony Rides"), and even finds hints of the west-coast school in the chirping synths of "Friendly Hallucinations". It's a sweet, desperate confusion, as summed up by a few lines from "Mrs. Deborah Downer":

All roads lead to the same confusion

I mean, all roads lead to the same conclusions

The journey, as in Circles, is a single creative flow, or if you prefer, a trip that at times intensifies ("Shangri-La"; "Transformations", where the alter ego Delusional Thomas returns) and at other times bends toward a dreamlike everyday life ("Funny Papers"; the remembrance of "Excelsior"). You don't even need to speculate much to glimpse the shadow of death in these songs — just read lines like those in "Manakins" ("It feels like I'm dyin'"). That said, this doesn't mean despair wins out; quite the opposite, the dream is always just around the corner, fueled by a bewitching hope like the one that emerges from Rick Rubin's piano on "Rick's Piano".

The finale is entrusted to the lengthy "Tomorrow Will Never Know", his psychedelic masterpiece, which manages to close out, with a burst of creative energy, an album that was already hard to consider anything less than exceptional. Mac Miller's second posthumous album, which manages to bring together Faces and Circles, ends with 12 minutes that fuse his atypical, melancholy psychedelic pop-rap with dreamlike, unsettling atmospheres worthy of a David Lynch film. The closing questions capture this blend of anguish and dream, imagining life after death:

Do they dream just like we do?

Do they love just like we do?

Baloonerism, produced mainly by Mac Miller himself alongside key contributions from friends and collaborators such as Thundercat, essential here too for the bass lines, is a punch to the gut. Its long tail, which dissolves emotion into a disordered, cacophonous brass-band music, painfully nostalgic and reminiscent of the colossal “Everywhere At The End Of Time”, closes with a line that sounds like an epitaph: “Give you a chance to start over”. Then a phone keeps ringing, but no one will ever answer.

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