Mac Miller’s posthumous album “Circles” provides a unique and intimate experience

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Courtesy of wikimedia commons

Mac Miller sings at a festival in 2017

At only 15 in 2007, Mac Miller began his career as a songwriter, singer, and rapper. Rostrum Records signed with Mac Miller in 2010, and ever since then, Miller has become famous, releasing music that astonished his fans. Even in death, Miller still amazed his fans with his most recent posthumous album “Circles”, which was released on January 17, 2020.
There are 12 songs in total: Circles, Complicated, Blue World, Good News, I Can See, Everybody, Woods, Hand Me Downs, That’s on Me, Hands, Surf, and Once a Day.

This posthumous album was characteristically Mac Miller, but unique in its intimacy, a peak into his mind and privy thoughts. The album was finished and put together by Jon Brion, a multi-instrumentalist who dealt with bass and percussion along with additional production. Brion did the best he could to truly show the essence of Mac Miller based off of his own personal conversations with Miller in the time they spent together. But of course, although the album is satisfying in its honesty, it feels like it’s missing something; the final touches of the artist himself. Thus, it’s a 4.5/5.
“It’s personal. It’s heartbreaking”, Jon Brion said, referring to the last track Once a Day.

But it’s not just that one song that’s “personal” and “heartbreaking”. Throughout the whole album, Mac Miller goes through the motions of reflecting on himself, his mental state and where he was at in life. It exhibited his talent for singing and writing than actual rapping. In fact, the only track with his traditional style of rap was Hands, keeping it playful with a snippy vocal “yeah” as a part of the beat and keys while delving deep in his thoughts and concerns on his own behavior.

Fans were crying and emotional towards Miller’s reflections in his album Circles.
Actually, his whole album had a similar theme in how Miller expressed his wishes of wanting to be okay and attempting to stay positive, all the while expressing his worries and stresses of his state of mind.
His first released music track since death is the single of the Circles album, Good News. In it, he says how his negative feelings are told to be suppressed, along with how he’s tired of his own negativity in his mind, but recognizes that his feelings are valid either way and wants people to see that.

“He came into the control room, and he was really excited. He started singing over it in the control room, and he sang the chorus”, Brion said.

The chorus didn’t really match the original song he was singing, and became a new song altogether.
Brion said “[Miller] was walking around in front of the speakers and he was singing that, [and I was] like, ‘Look, there’s a reason that came to you right now.’ ”

The songs that make up Circles had a flowing theme held constant throughout the synths, piano, strings plus bass, and percussion that dominated the album.
It’s no wonder his song That’s on Me debuted at #100 on the Hot List on the week ending February 1, 2020.