"Balloonerism", released on 17th January 2025, is the second posthumous album by the great Mac Miller. Seeing a project five years after Circles (2020), Balloonerism has succeeded in bringing all the long lost Mac fans back on the internet forming that tight knit community again. Now this album is said to be recorded ten years ago (around 2014) and certain Mac fans and confidants also claim that he was recording several projects at the same time that overlapped each other which makes sense hearing some of the "Faces" influence on this album.
Getting a little personal, Mac Miller is my favourite artist of all time. Whoever has not heard a single Mac song, I would urge them to go and listen to "K.I.D.S" especially if you are a teenager, start there and make your way through the trajectory of his albums. There will never be another artist who speaks to the listener like Mac did, it was a face to face conversation, so personal and gripping. Mac made it okay to have fun and not take life so seriously, to make others happy and actually live your life in the present. For outsiders he might have been a pot smoking, loud mouth teenager but for the fans who watched him grow from his early albums all the way to Swimming, we could see a figure speaking to us without any filters, telling us the thoughts in his mind, just bare open and comfortable in his own skin - and that has been powerful for so many people who listen to him. Whoever listened to K.I.D.S (2010) after his death followed by a song from Circles (2020) know the degree of change in Mac I am talking about.
Talking about the new album now,
"Balloonerism" at its core is essentially Macs way of disregarding structure and conformity in society which he is known for, but on this album it is done in a very trippy, psychedelic manner. This becomes clear as the album progresses and you listen to the random use of instruments, lyrics criticising the nature of society and adulthood like in the song "Excelsior" and the overall vibe of the record to be unhinged and rebellious. This album has "Faces" and "GO:OD AM" written all over it and correctly so for the time when it was made. The entire instrumental of the album is spacey and shows a fantasy with the use of the organ and the piano but it is given ground and footing with the drums (played by Mac himself) and the base (played by the great Thundercat). The start of the album with "DJ Chord Organ" is perfect because that elegant instrumental just sucks you in and the cool SZA vocals set up the stage for those cold Mac Miller bars. Imagine a psychedelic trip spiralling you into bad memories and experiences, this is kind of the essence of this album.
This album is genuinely really fucking good with zero skips. Songs like "Do You Have A Destination?", "Friendly Hallucinations", "Stoned" really bring out this trippy and weird aspect of this album, just makes you close your eyes and feel the tunes. The majority of production on the album is done by Mac's alter ego "Larry Fisherman" showing his flair for production. A heavy hitter is "Funny Pages" which was a highly anticipated song due to it being leaked previously and it very well holds its place as one of the best Mac Miller songs ever and also that piano outro is fucking beautiful. The song "Stoned" has the grooviest base guitar by Thundercat, the intros to each song are weird and funny in true Mac Miller fashion.
Listening to the lyrics, you get to know what this album is about. Almost all songs are about being high on drugs and being on this constant trip and how being on this trip helps Mac wrestle with issues like fame, love, money, society, etc. It signals to Mac's desire to escape and drugs being his vehicle of choice. But, the caveat is that you can also feel the unsaid which is that these drugs are also making it worse in the bigger picture. Mac passed away four years post recording this album and the record really foreshadows his overdosing in 2018. On records like "Mrs. Debrah Downer" it clearly suggests escapism by using hard drugs and psychedelics. Lyrically speaking, the album is extremely dark with hard cold references to drug abuse, suicide, mental instability, depression, trauma, etc. but Mac does not let it get too eerie and sad by using his sense of humour at the right places.
What I felt listening to the album for the first time was hearing the thoughts of a mind troubled by the life he lives and the strong need to escape but he does it through the means of drugs, and when you listen closer you realise that this is just a kid going through some stuff and he wants to run way back to his childhood where everything was alright.
Lastly, I just want to thank the Mac Miller Estate for blessing us with more of Mac and maintaining the rawness of the album, it made us fans truly happy.
Let me know your thoughts on the album or on Mac Miller in the comments. Hope you enjoyed reading this :)
-Kavish
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