Mac Miller's GO:OD A.M: What Do You Expect?

From Easy Mac With The Cheesy Raps to ImMACulate (I just made that up, Em style). From KIDS to Macadelic. From Blue Slide Park to Watching Movies With The Sound Off, Mac Miller has transformed himself into a sort of morphing, conscious, yet heavily drug influenced Two Face of the rap industry. On one side of it all, you have the KIDS version of Mac. Clean rap (as in strictly weed and no other "influences"), catchy hooks, and an incredibly likable character that makes music based on the stoner life. Then comes the morphing process, and you get Watching Movies With The Sound Off (and not to mention Faces) Mac Miller. Suddenly a switch is flipped; the music becomes more abstract along with the rhymes, the subject matter becomes something only a drugged out rock star in the 60s could relate to, and Mac taps into an alter ego of sorts. Both sides of Mac have gained fans (personally Faces got my attention, which led to Watching Movies With The Sound Off ), but there is only 1 Mac. Which Mac will we see on his upcoming album, GO:OD A.M.?

A clean Mac Miller. In case you haven't been keeping up with Mac since his resurfacing back into the music scene, he recently moved to New York with his girlfriend, and is currently in the process of keeping clean of drugs (although not alcohol as seen by his Breakfast Club interview, he admits it's a work in process). Mac knows he disappeared and will tell you himself, but for good reason. He kicked the bad habits (most of them), and a big part of this is due to his moving to legendary producer Rick Rubin's home in Malibu for the summer of 2014. " For 2 to 3 years, I was just numb," Mac was quoted as saying in an interview with Grantland. "So when you're coming out of that, it's all going to come out at once. I was crying every day."

With Mac's drug problem being a big part of his music making process, it would be safe to assume that we'd see quite a different Mac on his upcoming GO:OD AM album, set for a September 18th release. With both singles that have been released, it's hard to tell what to expect from Mac's upcoming album (I've learned not to judge an album based on a single), but we do see some comedy with "100 Grandkids", and we do hear Mac back to his rappity rap shit on "Break The Law."

Mac recently (finally) signed a major label deal with Warner Bros. for $10 million. Now if you know Mac Miller and how he's come up in rap, a lot of his fans like to take his side because he's been independent all of these years (I'd hope you wouldn't just like a rapper because he's independent, but some people enjoy being rebels without a cause), so Mac's signing a deal with a Major definitely raises some flags amongst his loyal fans, but Mac encourages people not to worry about his music changing because creatively he will still go through the same process. Mac says in his interview with The Breakfast Club on Power 105.1; "That was a big thing. There's no executive producer, there's no A&R. There were labels that I got that vibe from, but with Warner, they said you do you, and whenever you want to give us a single, let us know."

Mac also explained the album title, GO:OD A.M.: "I didn't like Good Morning as a title, but I liked it as a concept. I wanted the album to be like, that breath of fresh air. I wanted the idea to be refreshing. You know, you wake up in the morning and it's new." Mac also went on to explain that producer No I.D. gave him the idea for the album title.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxkkvNTU0qo
(Mac's second single, "Break The Law", *I do not own these videos or the rights to them*)

Faces and Watching Movies With The Sound Off  are 2 of Mac's absolute best projects. Now admittedly I haven't extensively listened to all of KIDS or Best Day Ever (what Mac's diehards say are some of his best projects), but when I hear things like "Kool Aid & Frozen Pizza" or 'Senior Skip Day", I have to admit I'm not impressed. I don't hear the spitting ability as something like "Here We Go" off of Faces, and I don't hear the abstract sound that makes him different from every other rapper on the planet like "The Star Room" off of Watching Movies With The Sound Off. Both of these projects give Mac that "it" factor that he just doesn't have on his early mix tapes. These 2 projects are Mac's Two-Face to his Harvey Dent (meaning musically AND lyrically, WMWTSO and Faces are Mac at his best). I can only hope that Mac's "alter ego" doesn't lead to a complete relapse, and his drug-influenced (it'd be wrong to say "greatness") music doesn't mean the death of him in the end.