Since it was announced just over a week ago, hip-hop fans looked forward to staying up for or waking up Friday morning to a new Mac Miller album.
In the midst of that, Eminem, certainly one of Mac's early influences, threw in his own surprise, dropping the jarringly titled "Music to be Murdered By." As music experiences, they couldn't be any more different.
Eminem's record, living up to the title, is a veritable feast of rage: hard, fast and aggressive, harping on his usual themes of jealousy, violence and betrayal, piled high with hip-hop braggadocio.
Miller was in a completely different mode and mood in his final days, as we gleaned from 2018's "Swimming" and now "Circles," which his family has released as his "sixth and final studio album."
"Circles," a "sister" album to "Swimming," was completed, with loving care, by co-producer Jon Brion, whose credits include Fiona Apple, Kanye West and Aimee Mann.
Fans were tweeting right away that "Circles" has them crying on this Friday morning. Just hearing his voice on new material would probably do that. In this case, it's a tearful mix of sadness and joy.
The 12-song "Circles" is wonderful, from start to finish. It doesn't sound in the least like it was slapped together just to give fans something, anything, for closure.
Miller _ having become tabloid fodder for his Ariana Grande breakup and DUI _ seemed to have bunkered down in his Los Angeles home studio in the spring and summer of 2018. He was in a mellow, kind of druggy mood, reflecting on fame, love, life, death and what it takes to get through the day.
"Circles" begins with a Motown-style bassline slowed down to a crawl, a hopeful, airy synth and Miller slurring in with "Well, this is what it look like right before you fall ... "
We learn that the circles he's talking about is the clock on the wall ticking through the days, and he's just watching it go by like a weary observer wanting to keep a little distance. Things are complicated, he's tired, in his head and with no energy to jump into the fray like Eminem.
In fact, there's only one up-tempo hip-hop track on "Circles" and that's "Blue World," which begins with an old doo-wop sample that's magically filtered through a jittery vocoder effect before Mac comes in with "Well, this mad world has made me crazy." But, "I'm here to make it all better with a little music for you" he tells us in a rare glimpse of the young Malcolm.
If by chance you have a boomer relative who never understood the appeal of Mac Miller, play them "Everybody," his cover of Arthur Lee's "Everybody's Gotta Live," which, by switching out the guitar for a piano, he's made into what sounds like a long lost John Lennon song.
Weathering the ups and downs of the fame that his talent delivered him, Miller spends "Circles" looking for comfort in simple things. "Once A Day," what could be the last song on an official Mac Miller studio release, is centered around the refrain of "Once a day I rise/ once a day I fall asleep with you/ Once a day I try/ but I can't find a single word."
I expected Brion to tack on a big synth-phonic outro, but "Circles" just ends abruptly, and artfully, on that note.
The video for "Good News," one of the highlights here, has him floating through the cosmos on a cloud and that's kind of the vibe of "Circles." It's almost like he sent this one down from heaven, with a hug and a weary and beautiful smile.
