It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when Mac Miller started taking things seriously. The Pittsburgh rapper was known as a goofball and frequently cast off as a frat rapper early in his career. And while songs like “Kool-Aid and Frozen Pizza,” “Nikes on My Feet,” and “The Spins” were certainly in heavy rotation on college campuses across the country in the early 2010s, Miller was already preparing a hard pivot.
You can hear the early signs of a shift on Macadelic, the 2012 mixtape Miller dropped shortly after his debut album Blue Slide Park received mixed reviews. Songs like “Fight the Feeling,” where Miller recounts his struggles with the burdens placed on him, felt like the first sign that the “Senior Skip Day” rapper was out to prove he had more in his repertoire. And if he had to leave some fans behind, he was cool with that.
The projects that followed were introspective and abstract and occasionally made you wonder what was being consumed during recording sessions. Drugs and temptation were heavy themes, and Miller seemed to be constantly contemplating the idea of his own death. Those motifs persist on Balloonerism, the second posthumous album—and first since 2020’s Circles—that Miller’s estate has released since his accidental overdose in 2018.
The Miller we find on Balloonerism mirrors the one we hear on projects like Faces and Watching Movies With the Sound Off, mostly because he started development on these projects around the same time in 2013. It’s unclear why Miller decided to release the latter two and not the former, but it’s clear Balloonerism meant a lot to him. In November, the Miller estate posted about the project on social media, saying that the project was “of great importance to Malcolm — to the extent that he commissioned artwork for it and discussions concerning when it should be released were had regularly, though ultimately GO:OD AM and subsequent albums ended up taking precedence.”
“Given that unofficial versions of the album have circulated online for years,” the post continued, “and that releasing ‘Balloonerism’ was something that Malcolm frequently expressed being important to him, we felt it most appropriate to present an official version of the project to the world.”
It was worth the wait. Balloonerism feels like taking a fulfilling but depressing acid-fueled tour of Miller’s brain. You can feel the ghosts of Faces on Balloonerism—the jazz-influenced production, meandering paths through drug-fueled nights, and his fascination with his own death. On “Rick’s Piano,” Miller hauntingly asks what death feels like before singing, “Why does death steal life?” It’s hard to tell if he’s predicting his own demise or simply thinking out loud about where a life of addiction typically leads. This is the sentiment that permeates Faces’ “Funeral,” where he declares “Doing drugs is just a war with boredom but they sure to get me”—a lyric that Miller’s friend and collaborator Ab-Soul would quote in his own 2022 song “Do Better.”
On the last track of Balloonerism, “Tomorrow Will Never Know,” Miller wonders whether God will ever give him a break before deciding that it doesn’t matter and that living and dying are one in the same. An automated voicemail continues to play throughout the song, signaling a slew of missed calls, as Miller questions whether the dead are capable of dreaming or love. It’s fairly heavy stuff, but there are a couple sprouts of whimsy amid the bleakness. Miller reviving his high-pitched Delusional Thomas alter ego to make fart jokes on “Transformations” is an entertaining reference for Macheads, but it also brings to mind how far he had come from his K.I.D.S. days.
It’s tempting to try and read deeply into Balloonerism, but the confounding thing about Miller is that he’s always contained multitudes. Early on, he was pigeonholed as a frat rapper, then a party boy obsessed with making hits. Balloonerism finds him trying to shake that off and be taken seriously, while also showing major labels that he didn’t need a hit to make an impact. He was in his early 20s around the time this project went into production, and he was struggling with the same things a lot of college kids his age struggled with: A growing dependence on drugs and alcohol, figuring out what he wanted out of life, and rarely thinking about the consequences of his actions. In later years, he would bristle against the repercussions of some of his early work, but he’s not quite there on Balloonerism. This is Miller in the depths and trying to fight his way out without sinking deeper.
You can likely pin Miller’s changing sound to his move to Los Angeles in 2012. According to Most Dope, a biography by Paul Cantor, Miller decided to move into his Studio City mansion after falling in love with L.A. while shooting an episode of Punk’d. The house would become a haven for up-and-coming rappers like TDE members Schoolboy Q and Ab-Soul, as well as Tyler, the Creator, Vince Staples, and Earl Sweatshirt.
By 2012, Miller had started to receive more uniform acclaim throughout the rap community, snagging collabs with veterans like Raekwon and Talib Kweli. It was also when he developed a very serious lean addiction. Those late nights in his famous red-tinted studio, the Sanctuary, were often filled with an assortment of drugs, alcohol, and an eclectic mix of collaborators, Cantor wrote.
From his Sanctuary, Miller began to craft his sound with the darker, psychedelic hue we hear on Balloonerism. There aren’t really any bangers on 2013’s Watching Movies, and that feels intentional. If Macadelic was Miller taking the first steps on an experimental journey, Watching Movies was him going down the rabbit hole. And by the time we get to Faces a year later, it was clear Miller was wondering how he'd made it this far. He starts Faces with "Inside Outside," the very first line of which—"Shoulda died already"—seemed fairly ominous.
“Faces was the craziest moment,” Miller’s friend and collaborator Clockwork said in Most Dope. “It’s really where you could hear his cry for help. Faces was a really dark moment for everybody. Like on a roller coaster when you go up—Blue Slide Park; Best Day Ever; I Love Life, Thank You; Macadelic, then Faces. Faces is the drop.”
Watching Movies, Faces, and Balloonerism were all in development around the same time, with the latter eventually getting scrapped (until a few songs leaked online in 2020). But Macheads wanted to see if the whole project would provide some of the depth and trippiness that had become the rapper’s calling card. The likes of “Shangri-La,” “Stoned,” and “5 Dollar Pony Rides,” feel like umbrellas in an unrelenting downpour, keeping the album’s dark themes at bay so Miller can take listeners on intoxicating side quests. It feels like classic Mac, inviting fans to light one up and enjoy the ride.
For those looking for a totally transportive experience, there’s an accompanying animated short film directed by Samuel Jerome Mason—an abstract, utterly fascinating depiction of some of the songs and themes of the album. The film is beautiful in its composition, giving us a visual interpretation of songs like “Funny Papers” and “Excelsior.” Using “texturally realistic 3D CG,” it tells the story of a group of young children who are transported (via magical chord organ) to a different world where they are shown the pitfalls of adulthood and pursued by a turtle that represents time.
Tracing Miller’s trajectory through this period and beyond can feel odd. A guy who most people would have pegged early on as another Hoodie Allen or Mike Stud grew to become one of the more respected rappers of his generation. Between Macadelic and Faces, Miller was clearly struggling to get people to change their view of him, both within his own fan base and to the people who judged his music professionally. Cantor writes about how eager Miller was to meet music critics face-to-face and show them the real Mac. One of the people he converted was Insanul Ahmed, who wrote a Complex cover story on Miller after he dropped Blue Slide Park and before Watching Movies. “Right after the Complex piece I did, [Miller] did a lot of press with people who used to shit on him,” Ahmed told Cantor. “He was such a jovial guy. People liked hanging out with him.”
Pushing against the norm would lead to more experimentation. Mac seemed mentally sharper on GO:OD AM, and his desire to test his vocals and sing more on The Divine Feminine made it a standout addition to his discography. This was a changed Mac. He was still haunted, but he was fighting against the dark instead of stepping deeper into it. You can feel that in the lyrics and music video for “Self Care” off 2018’s Swimming.
The video is a reference to Kill Bill: Vol. 2, with Miller starting the song having been buried alive in a coffin. He eventually digs himself out, but an explosion shortly after his escape sends him hurtling through the air.
Things were bad (after writing the song Miller was in a car accident that was so serious, he was lucky to have survived it) but it seemed like he might be closer to figuring things out. Fans were hopeful Miller was finally ready to turn a corner and his music seemed to suggest that he was closer than he’d been before.
The desire to see this fully formed Miller was shared by many a Machead, especially after Jon Brion explained to TheNew York Times that Swimming and Miller’s first posthumous album, Circles, were supposed to be part of a trilogy. “I believe the third one would have been just a pure hip-hop record,” Brion said. “I think he wanted to tell people, ‘I still love this, I still do this.’”
We’ll never know what that last album would’ve sounded like, but Macheads should be thrilled with the album they received. Balloonerism is an enthralling return to Miller’s burgeoning experimental days, and it’s more than happy to take you down the wormhole—sometimes literally. It’s worth the trip.
