It’s been 497 days since the music world stood still after the death of rap’s iconic personalities: Mac Miller.
His 2018 release: “Swimming”, the final album of his 26-year life, was already an emotional trip with tracks such as the lead-single “Self-Care” as well as the harmonious “2009” taking a dark detour into Mac’s psyche and current mental state. In hindsight, Swimming becomes an even eerier listen with the diary-jotting lyrical themes and abject delivery taking on a new weight-class since Miller’s untimely passing.
With it seemingly being almost a trend for labels to cobble together and cash in posthumously on artists, the treatment of Mac’s body of work has been far more carefully assembled. A recent Instagram post from Miller’s account told fans that the first and last album since his passing would be released perhaps earlier than some would have expected. Jon Brion is credited to finishing and constructing the album “based on his time and conversations with Malcolm”, and burdened with the responsibility of “the difficult and emotional task of putting out this body of work”.
This coincided with the release of the single “Good News”, accompanied by a sentimental, yet colourfully abstract 6-and-a-half minute music video that only Mac Miller at this stage of his career could have put out. “Hope I make it home from work / Well, so tired of being so tired” wrenches the heart knowing the context surrounding the first utterance we’ve heard from Mac since he left us.
“Hope I make it home from work / Well, so tired of being so tired”
– Mac Miller, “Good News”
Good News isn’t such a song, as much as it is a personal rabbit-hole or an exercise of demons. Taking on the same, stripped back sonic palette as many of the cuts on Swimming, it’s clear that Mac wanted you to know how he was and put that at the forefront of his music — regardless of whether you’d listen or not.
Brion’s interview with Apple Music when the song was released provided commentary that accompanied the images shown in the video of Mac playfully dancing in the studio while the plucky, bassline instrumental plays.
“I did with him what I’ve done with a bunch of directors, which is: watch the body language”, he said. “He came into the control room and he was really excited. He started singing over it [the beat] in the control room, and he sang the chorus, I look up and go ‘that’s it'”.
“Circles” is released this Friday and is the sibling-album to 2018’s Swimming, with the concept being that Mac was ‘swimming in circles’. The careful and caring ensemble of emotions and ideas is a suitable send-off to one of hip-hop’s most recognisable figures this past decade; taken far too early.
Good read.