Balloonerism: The Off-Balance Review.
Mac Miller's second posthumous project speaks, once again, to his diverse and committed artistry.
Very rarely is one granted the pleasure to see an artist evolve in real-time but Mac Miller (the stage name of Malcolm McCormick) always seemed to thrive under that unrelenting spotlight.
His career, as it was, lasted less than a decade but was noted, even during his lifetime, for an extraordinary growth.
His production, his lyricism, his overall musicianship.
Initially cutting his teeth in the frat-house, party-rap scene, by the time his second album, 2013’s Watching Movies with the Sound Off released, the Pittsburgh native was openly experimenting with an edge that would become his calling card.
Raw hip-hop, psychedelia, jazz, funk. From relationships and the fragility of morality or the candour given to his struggles with mental health and substance abuse. Musings on pop culture, the horrorcore cuts of his alter-ego, Delusional Thomas or the genuine love he found in simply being a working artist: there was seemingly nothing he wouldn’t consider incorporating into his sound.
Upon his death in 2018 however, at 26, by way of an accidental drug overdose, inevitability, Miller’s just-fully expanding promise was left lingering.
Where would he have gone next?
It was a question partially answered in 2020 with Circles, his sixth album, which was completed in partnership with Miller’s estate and producer Jon Brion.
An epilogue of sorts, an apparent final stanza, bridging all of his influences and artistic leanings into a project he was actively working on with Brion just before his death.
But Balloonerism, Miller’s second posthumous album and seventh total, which dropped on January 17th, just two days shy on what would have been the rapper’s 33rd birthday?
It is a different beast altogether.
In their statement announcing its release, Miller’s estate acknowledged that, as bootleg versions of the record have existed online for many years now, they felt that it was in the best interest of Miller’s memory to present something official.
And so, they have.
Recorded in 2014, with art Miller personally commissioned by artist Alim Smith and his fingerprints over every measure of the production, be it cooperatively or solo (either as a writer or behind the boards under his Larry Fisherman alias, though often next to frequent collaborator, Thundercat).
Balloonerism, once lost, now found, emerges from the shadow of what was ultimately Miller’s most prolific and experimental period.
Familiar but fresh all the same.
Though right from the opening bars of the first track, DJ’s Organ Chord, with its open-ended beat - pronounced drums, quiet bass and a loose, intimate rap-jazz, club feel (with spot vocals by SZA, as the project’s only feature) the tone for the album as a whole is quickly set.
There isn’t much raw diversity but the production work is consistent throughout, a blend of influences, nearly ethereal in both style and delivery, frequent hallmarks of Miller during this period. Drugs, sex and oodles of money that may provide comfortability but no true sense of emotional closure.
There are traces of 2012’s You and lyricism, unsurprisingly, that invokes Faces, the 2014 tape oft-considered his magnum opus (which would have been developed and recorded around the same time).
Yet Faces, though similarly exploratory in its psychedelia is heavier, darker and at times, very much with the benefit of hindsight, difficult to parse.
Balloonerism, per the name, is lighter.
Stripped back and a touch more casual, if hitting similar thematic notes over its fourteen tracks.
On “Do You Have a Destination?”, Miller ruminates on the trials and benefits of fame both, an honesty that seems intent on pushing back against the listener’s expectations of his lifestyle (Okay, I went to sleep famous and woke up invisible/Rich as fuck and miserable/At least I did Kimmel and Arsenio, my mom got it on video).
“Rick’s Piano”, doing much the same if with a softer approach (E.T’s not dead, just a little bit faded/Please don’t give me any credit, that’s how people get jaded/Please don’t nod your head and please don’t tell me I made it/’Cause people start to get worse once they think they think they’re the greatest).
There is “Friendly Hallucinations”, an uneasy croon paired with spaced-out but sonically rich wordplay (Her Mama was a ladybug, Papa was an atheist/Workin’ on a novel set in Cold War Romania/Chasin’ love, indolizin’ Joan of Arcadia).
“Mrs. Deborah Downer” has Miller working through his drug use and with it, as was standard, his morality too.
(Cleaned myself up now won’t you be my friend?/Do I need to know the beginning to see the end?)
In many respects, Balloonerism exists as something of a time capsule: Miller’s estate has been incredibly selective with the material they have released following his death, not flooding the market with half-baked or wholly unfinished work.
That in itself, a tribute to an artist who prided himself on nothing short of excellence.
But while Circles was the epitome of that thinking, Balloonerism isn’t quite the same.
It is a strong addition to Miller’s rich tapestry yes but expectedly, lacks the maturity, lyrically and within the depths of his sound, that his later efforts would see brought to the forefront (the inclusion of a Delusional Thomas track, speaking to this) while being so close to his other projects in nature, familiarity then, is undeniably hard to shake.
But in just visiting with an old friend of sorts, well, perhaps for many, it will be enough. It often is.
Though just not in totality.