Rating: 4/5
Even though he tragically passed away from an accidental drug overdose in 2018, hop-hop artist Mac Miller currently averages twenty-six million monthly listeners on Spotify.
“Balloonerism” was originally an unfinished project recorded in 2014.It wasn’t released earlier because Miller was working on his other albums, “Watching Movies with the Sound Off” and “Faces.” It was recently released on Jan. 17 by Warner Records.
Of the album’s 14 songs, many are great, but “DJ’s Chord Organ,” featuring SZA, stands out.
The song is very creative, especially the way Miller starts the song by listing the names of the notes. Additionally, SZA’s beautiful vocals match so well with the instruments.
Another song that I really enjoyed was “Friendly Hallucinations.” Here, Miller compares a loving relationship with getting high and hallucinating. I like it when artists put their real-life feelings in a song, and you can feel its authenticity. In the song, he repeats the line, “It’s only real, if it’s real to you,” talking about how both love and hallucinations are only real if you believe that they’re real.
The last song, “Tomorrow Will Never Know,” is almost a 12-minute track and ends with instrumentals for almost 7 minutes. I felt like this was too long and he should’ve kept it about 6-7 minutes. The song reminds me of Kanye West’s “Runaway” which also ends with a long duration of instrumentals.
I thought that the album was pretty good; however, it is very dark because it talks about sensitive topics such as drug abuse and loneliness. I really liked Miller’s flow and the instrumentals. The album has a lot of replay value with many great songs that you can put in your playlists, or you could just listen to the album by itself.
If I had to describe this album in one word, it would be “introspection.” Miller speaks about his drug addiction, love, and mental health. If there was a correct way to do a posthumous release, this would be it.