Circles

Never listened to this guy. It's good: heavily haunted, of course, by the sad ending preceding its release. The older I get the more utterly void of romance I find this ugly and commonplace tale. Bonus point for featuring Wendy.

Though I like rap, I never knew Mac Miller, besides an nice Tiny Desk concert. In retrospect I should have paid attention. Circles is a great hip hop album and his other albums are also worth listening to. Several songs are Mac singing and he is certainly not that great at it, but in a way this imperfection makes the songs intimate and personal. The music is laid back and jazzy/funky. A bit of an Anderson .Paak vibe.

Rating: 9/10 Best songs: Circles, Blue world, Good news, Everybody, Woods, That’s on me, Surf

The first album that came out after Mac’s death was a significant change in style, and the struggles he was facing can be heard throughout. This was one of his better albums. A more low key introspective album for the guy who started off making party rap. He came a long way musically and had a lot of talent. The pleasures of this album are a bittersweet feeling. 7.8/10

Hip-hop, funk, emo rap. Suavecito, tranquilo. Me ha gustado. Un 4, venga.

Hip-hop, funk, emo rap. Suavecito, tranquilo. Me ha gustado. Un 4, venga.

I was thinking about what Mac Miller album would have been more representative of his music than this. The conclusion I arrived at is that no one album represents every facet of Miller's musicianship. This album represents the soulful direction he was moving in before his untimely death. Mac Miller is an artist that has touched a lot of listeners and this is a modern album which deserves to have been included!

Mac Miller came up as a Pittsburgh frat-rapper on Rostrum Records alongside Wiz Khalifa during the early 2010s. During this time, Miller was able to grow his profile without a radio hit: a true grassroots phenomenon. He did find himself on an Ariana Grande single in 2013 and later dropped a mixtape with Vince Staples, eventually signing with REMember Music under Warner Bros. for the latter half of the 2010s. During this time, Miller would round out his rap style for wider audiences while still maintaining his jazzy and cloud rap production. This coalesced into his most realized record at the time, Swimming, which saw Miller rapping over a soulful blend of R&B and funk beats. Clearly, no was doing it like him. Behind the scenes, things weren't going so great. A high-profile relationship with Ariana Grande came to an end after two years, likely due to his struggles with substance use. Despite trying to get clean, Miller would fall back into old habits and later found himself in trouble due to a DUI in 2018. Even if Swimming was his most successful release at that point, Miller likely felt like he was at rock bottom. During this time, the music he was recording was increasingly introspective and mellow. This is what would eventually become Circles. Listening to the album reveals a lot less rap than you would normally expect on a Mac Miller release. Circles takes the most soulful R&B parts of Swimming and puts them front-and-center in a vulnerable, moody state of mind. This is seemingly Miller at his lowest, emphasized by the ever-tired portrait on the cover. It seems as though Miller was coming into his own on this one, marking a more mature transition in his life. At this point he was 26, an adult but still fairly young. His mistakes would make him who he was, and he intended to put that on display as a way of saying "I'm only human, but I can still work on myself." It's deeply true and honest, maybe even a little sad. Mac Miller died before he saw this album come to fruition. A mix of alcohol, cocaine, and fentanyl was found in his system. It would be Jon Brion, producer of Miller's prior album Swimming, who helped finished Circles with the permission of Miller's estate. With such a heavy responsibility, Brio did his best to fulfill Miller's creative vision in his absence. If you want my two cents, he did a phenomenal job. CONTENDER FOR THE LIST: Perhaps, yes. Miller was never a uniquely impressive rapper, but I always got the impression that we were only just starting to see the best of his work by the time he passed. If his NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert was eligible, I would've went with that. But I think this is a good way to remember an artist that was just starting to find himself.

Gotta go for *Swimming* instead. Maybe even bangers-filled *GO:OD AM*, before MacMiller started collaborating with producer Jon Brion... That said, I realize that the tragic context around this posthumous album makes it precious for fans, and there are moments that are unambiguously fabulous in this one as well. Title-track "Circle" is a perfect barebones opener, atmospheric, moody (the fantastic jazz touch that vibraphone conveys!), but also poignant' And speaking of "poignant"... The lyrics of highlight "Good News" tighten the throat for sure, with its imagery about flying and yet feeling dragged down by your demons, the sincere manner in which the artist's existential questioning is expressed, along with musings about the possibility of an afterlife. All of which can't fail to recall the circumstances around MacMiller's demise (on lyrics about death, see also "Everybody"). Plus, the soft rock instrumentation on "Good News" makes the whole song so moving and cinematic anyway. "Blue World" and "Woods" also display the best the rapper's association with Jon Brion can offer -- with the first of those tracks feeling as slick and catchy as the second feels intricate and sinuous thanks to its killer lush arrangements. And if "That's On Me" is not exactly a highlight in the album, MacMiller going for a ternary rhythm here is certainly daring. Always love it when rappers try their hand on 3/4 bars, which is quite rare. As that Wikipedia blurb says, *Circles* was intended as a "companion album" to *Swimming*, and as a whole, it clearly feels like an off-shoot, and not its own thing. Besides, there are very clear weak points in the tracklist, with second cut "Complicated" -- showcasing the sort of musical self-indulgence MacMiller and his collaborators sometimes fell to -- being the most prominent of them. For me, that sort of self-indulgence can be found in spades on the second half of the record, decent overall, but with a lot of unobtrusive, meat-and-potatoes instrumentals. "Hands" sure tries to up the ante dynamics-wise. But for me, it's too little and too late. That back half just can't compare with the one of *Swimming*, with its insane build-up up until its very last song. In spite of my harsh and very subjective words up there, I still support that choice of an album because of its highlights. Only, I can't include it in my own list of 1001 keepers. Of course, I feel like a MacMiller album should be there. But which one? Guess the fans will discuss which LP from the artist is the absolute best for a long time to come... So thanks for bringing your input, at least. 3.5/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums, rounded up to 4 8.5/10 for more general purposes (5 + 3.5) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 61 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 80 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 146 (including this one) ---- Emile... Ma propre balise temporelle... Tu trouveras mes trois dernières réponses sous les albums d'Eric B. & Rakim, Shpongle et Ookla The Mok

Good 3

This is the weirdest Rap I've ever heard but on a depressing cold wet Monday morning it's quite soothing. Sad waste of a life again. I wonder how much it lends itself to listening to the music? We'll never know. Still, I'll listen again.

I shan't speak ill of the dead but I didn't really see any brilliance here. Some nice beats and a sincere performance.

This played while I listened

Solid album, smooth and calm.

Circle circle square

Not my style.

I felt like I wanted to enjoy this more than I actually could.

Hip-hop, funk, emo rap. Aburrido.

Makes me wonder if I’m trying harder with this album because it’s posthumous. It’s not a bad hip hop album, but really doesn’t draw me in.

Never listened to Miller's work, even after his untimely passing caused his star to rise to insane levels. Blown away by the man's vocals, feels almost like a richer, more soulful Tom Waits. However, the writing and instrumentals here really betray Miller's great vocal performance – the backing tracks feel too amorphous and soft, lacking any hard edges or memorable definition. The lyricism goes in circles, repeating the clever lines again and again until they've well lost their charm. Almost felt like the sonic equivalent of trying to get out of a bean bag and being stuck in an ever-shifting mass you can't really grab on to. Would've loved to hear Miller put some dynamic range into this project and maybe get a bit louder too.

This was slow, dark, included very little rap, and was...boring.

the circles in question are the ones under my eyes from listening to this *backflips into oncoming traffic*

I like some of his other songs, but this album did nothing for me.

I was interested to listen as I’d only heard the name before. And I would be interested to know what the attraction is to this album. No shade, just I thought the music was dull and basic, the lyrics we basic and sparse, the vocals were not enough to carry the other two. But he obviously had/has a fan base. I just didn’t get it.