![]() ![]() ![]() On “Loitering,” Mac raps “I’m way too old to be chillin’ at the playground, never be too old to be chillin’ at the playground.” In many respects, the line embodies the dichotomy of Mac Miller. While “Diamonds and Gold,” is a creative look into struggles of female adolescence, “Missed Calls,” a story of a relationship gone sour, ends up an all too familiar and cliché. With this, there was opportunity on Blue Slide Park to genuinely capture some real elements of youth, and the album doesn’t capitalize on the opportunity. Mac Miller’s image is one so closely tied to the idea of being a regular, fun loving, kid. Catchy, sure, but anyone of legal age can’t help but cringe as Mac brags about taking shots with no chaser. But then there are songs like “Up All Night,” an anthem for underage high school drinkers everywhere. On “Party on 5th Avenue,” Mac shows an appreciation for hip-hop well beyond his years, rhyming over a clever revamping of DJ Kool’s 1996 “Let Me Clear My Throat” (originally by way of the 45 King’s 1987 “The 900 number”). ![]() Lyrically, the album has its conflicting moments. The spacey intro ("English Lane"), a curious 36-second long instrumental piece ("Hole in The Pocket") and the introspective closer ("One Last Thing"), all illustrate an inclination to go outside the box. As we come to the end of the song, the same instrumentals that started this album begin to come back, eventually engulfing the vocals in sound and leaving the audience feeling as if they are staring at clouds go by gracefully across the sky.Inputs from the other contributing producers such as the buzzing Clams Casino, and Ritz Reynolds result in some of the most experimental moments of the album. He gives off the sense of “it is what it is”, and how everything happening around him does not bother him anymore, and he has fully let go of his past self. This song is one of the saddest yet breathable songs I have ever heard made by Mac. The last song Miller produced, and the last song on this album. Mac miller died just over a month after the release of swimming, which brings up to my last song I would like to bring up from this album. Side note to “ Self Care ”, the music video’s scene starts with Mac Miller buried alive in a coffin, carving”Memento Mori” (Latin for “remember that you have to die”). This is where I find that he expresses the loss of Ariana Grande and his battle to find himself one more the most in the album. Moving away from the upbeat funk, Mac’s slower songs on the album “Se lf Care ” and “ Wings ”, which are lined up to flow together, are two of the most serious and closest to home songs on the album. And finally, we have Mac’s last album and by far one of his crown jewels: Swimming. As Mac became older, he kept his music original by bringing in style of his rap, leaning more towards R&B infused groovy base lines and a huge focus on poetical rapping, as clearly seen in The Divine Feminine, which was Mac’s album about meeting love (Ariana Grande). With his albums, Faces and Watching Movies with the Sound Off, talking about drug addiction and abuse, love, and other perspective altering topics, it was clear that Mac Miller was one of the best in the game because he was so different from the other internet rappers of his time. Then evolving his rapping towards the real-life problems and more on the experimental side of rapping with abstract ideas. Starting off with Blue Slide Park when he was just a kid making YouTube videos of him rapping in a tree about his Nike’s on his feet. As Mac Miller’s career sprouted and grew throughout our lives, you are able to see the development of his music as time passed. ![]()
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