Mac Miller’s gives fans his best in posthumous album, “Circles”
Album art courtesy of Warner Records
The musical skills of Mac Miller have returned one last time with his posthumous album, “Circles,” released on Jan. 17. Released over a year after the rapper, singer, and producer’s untimely death in 2018, “Circles” represents the last major project of Miller’s career.
The album combines vocal performances from Miller prior to his death and after the release of his last album, “Swimming,” with record production based around conversations Miller had with collaborators. The result is a raw album that may lack some of the fine-tuning of a usual record but makes up for it by providing the musician’s dedicated fan base with a series of brilliant tracks and a chance to say goodbye.
At a reasonable 48 minutes in length and featuring 12 songs, “Circles” has several standout tracks.
This album includes a lot of different takes on production style. Beats, rhythm and general style vary from track to track. That’s what makes the title track, “Circles,” so special; it doesn’t try to be anything more than a message from the artist. The album is at its rawest, with Miller delivering a simple but heartbreaking performance against the calmest beat you’ll hear all year.
Miller puts out heart warming lyrics like, “don’t you put any more stress on yourself it’s one day at a time” throughout the track, which feels like a meditation on his own situation but still manages to feel intensely relatable.
“Blue World” is one of the most ambitious tracks on this album. Its beat, which features a sort of stuttering voice to keep its rhythm, is unique to the track and intensely memorable. Miller’s performance is just as unique, featuring a well-executed mixture of rapping and traditional singing which shows all his vocal strengths.
The album doesn’t have all the direct emotional messages as some of the album’s other notable tracks, but it accomplishes enough musically to easily make the list for its best tracks.
“Good News” was the first song from the album released, earning a huge response and a music video along the way. It’s less experimental than “Blue World” but its lyrics are packed a rollercoaster of emotions, reminding the listener of Miller’s much beloved personality while also focusing in on the struggles the musician faced with lines like “A lot of things I regret, but I just say I forget, Why can't it just be easy? Why does everybody need me to stay?”
Miller ends “Good News” with a heart breaking approximation of his life, “That there's a whole lot more for me waiting, I know maybe I'm too late I could make it there some other time, Then I'll finally discover, That it ain't that bad.” It’s a tough song to listen to, given the context of Miller’s passing, but it’s also a glimpse deep into where the 26-year-old rapper was toward the end of his life.
As perfect as “Circles” is as an opening song for this album, “Once a Day” also feels like a fitting end to what may well be the last album ever published under Mac Miller’s name. Miller returns to the simple sounds the album began with, presenting a raw and emotional vocal performance.
“Once a Day”, the shortest track on the album at just two minutes and forty seconds, includes just a few verses. Each line, however, leaves a lot for the listener to consider. The track and album’s final lines are simple, “Once a day I rush, Once a day I fall asleep with you, Once a day I drop but I can't find a single word,” but the way the track cuts off is almost as if the song wasn’t supposed to end there, which leaves a gut wrenching period at the end of the sentence for Miller’s final album.
Whether or not you were a big Mac Miller fan in 2011, 2015 or 2018, this album is a must. The circumstances of “Circles” may be painful, but that doesn’t hold the album back. Instead, “Circles” is filled with remarkable, delicate, and powerful tracks from corner to corner.