ARTIST: Mac Miller
ALBUM: GO:OD AM
LABEL: Warner Bros.
RELEASE DATE: September 18, 2015
Is it Good?
Written by Silas Valentino
When contemporary saxophone icon Kamasi Washington played back-to-back nights at the revered Blue Note jazz joint in New York City this past summer, Mac Miller was spotted lingering by the club’s green room. Tatted and with his signature 4:20-o’clock shadow, Miller was an unexpected celebrity at a gig such as this – Washington, after all, is blazing new trails in his musical realm while Miller is thumbing through his Rolodex.
Washington’s bassist Stephen Bruner (or Thundercat) pops up twice on Mac Miller’s newest and third hip-hop attempt, titled GO:OD AM, on the tracks “Brand Names” and “Break the Law.” And the list of commendable guests continues to snowball: Odd Future alums, Ab-Soul, Miguel and Little Dragon all contribute to this downbeat, 70-minute record. But a guest list as rich as this can’t provide Mac Miller the support needed to jolt this uninspired album out of its stupor. (The album’s cover art is a foreshadow with its depiction of a drowsy Mac Miller, mouth wide open, letting out a morning yawn.) Three albums and several mixtapes later, Mac Miller continues to sound like the kid in high school slinging his burnt CD demos to anyone who’ll stop and listen.
Mumbling as he greets, Mac Miller introduces the album with the Tyler, The Creator-produced track “Doors.” The calm beat is reminiscent of those initial, whimsical Odd Future mixtapes where Tyler and Co. would dedicate tracks to “10 Ugly Girls” except “Doors” substitutes gags for ideas spawned by half-baked Zig-Zags. “One day you’ll go, right now you’re here/Don’t leave just yet, don’t disappear,” he croons, sounding as self-realized as ever.
“Doors” bleeds into the following track “Brand Name” by way of a jarring and obnoxious morning alarm beeping off, kicking GO:OD AM into action. Is it metaphorical? Has Mac Miller found his hip-hop spiritual awakening and is trust about to be restored in the form of gifted MCing?
“So this the music that made white people mad/Yeah, this the shit to blow your speakers out/This the shit you dream about,” Mac Miller mutters over a scrappy, lo-fi production during the mid-album cut “In the Bag.” Maybe that spiritual awakening was more of a pipe dream…
Mac Miller appears to be on a mission to convince audiences of his maturity and potential. It’s been five years since his 2011 breakthrough single “Donald Trump” and he’s giving the impression that he wants to exchange his image of being a Friday-night-frat-house anthem roller for being a cognizant confessor of candor. Roots-conscience rappers dominated the game in 2015 (what up Kendrick, Vince Staples and more recently Anderson .Paak) and even as far as country music has bro culture seen its collective stagnation. Mac Miller, overall, sounds so desperately motivated to produce something grandeur and refreshing that he forgot to check himself before he – well, you know where that rhyme was going. And so would Mac Miller; simplistic writing appears to be his game.
Redemption comes late but arrives nonetheless. “The Festival” is GO:OD AM’s finale and alongside Little Dragon, Mac Miller proves some mettle. He refers to God as “she” (progressive and potentially a nod to Kevin Smith’s Dogma) and the flow is as pleasant as a Benadryl-induced daydream. Little Dragon supplies their signature lucid, electro-pop instrumentation while singer Yukimi Nagano yields a soulful verse to wind us down for the night. With so much of GO:OD AM wrapped up in disappointment, “The Festival” is a celebration where Mac Miller articulates his drama with prose, rather than drilling it down the esophagus.
Mac Miller is trying hard to reinvent himself and you can really hear it throughout GO:OD AM. His effort is detected but his hack tendencies prevail. The college kids that once blasted “Donald Trump” are currently grinding away in their 9-5s and hustling through their struggles. They don’t have time to linger and mooch off this year’s epic jazz guru or enlist their successful friends for assistance. They’re just trying to grow up without wearing it on their sleeves.