Mac Miller’s latest project “GO:OD AM” is the 23-year old rapper’s first major label release and is his most ambitious and introspective album to date.
“GO:OD AM” starts out with the soft and melodic “Doors.” This track was engineered by Tyler, The Creator and features some typical Mac Miller groaning. As strange as it is to say, Mac Miller’s groaning is something of a theme for the entire album. Tyler’s smooth instrumentation gives a dreamy feeling to the album’s opener, immediately playing on the album title’s homage to all things waking up, while the “good morning baby” outro clarifies the intent of the first song — Mac has awoken.
From there the album flows into “Brand Name” where Mac raps about how “everything we love, it ain’t nothing but a brand name.” Basically Miller say all other rappers are a “Brand Name” while he’s handmade, and one of the things that I’ve appreciated about Miller’s rise to fame is how organic it has been.
From a technical standpoint, “GO:OD AM’s” production is top-notch. Mac’s flow can seem redundant at times, especially if you listen to the whole album from start to finish, but songs like “Clubhouse,” “In The Bag,” “When In Rome” and “Cut The Check” all display Mac’s ability to bend his flows to the many beat brakes and switches throughout the album.
Throughout his career, Mac’s songs have had both pros and cons. For example, when Mac has an especially hard-hitting track like “Clubhouse,” he’ll often rattle off a corny line like “Told the bitch to slow down like dial up.”
The album opener and album title implies some broadened lyrical foray into introspection that many figured Mac may have picked up now that he’s been in the game for over five years. Five generic head-bangers later and listeners were headed for another “Faces.”
The song “God Speed” seems to refocus the album and represents the album’s true beginning. No longer is he entranced by the lifestyle he flaunted in songs like “Clubhouse” and “Rush Hour.” Now he’s indulging more in the inclinations he touted in “100 Grandkids.” From there, though, listeners get another head banger with the ultra-aggressive and boastful “When In Rome.”
It’s this inconsistency that has plagued every Mac Miller album before this one. When you play this album as background music it sounds exactly like what a good album should sound like. The only problem is the same quality is shared by a boatload of rappers in the mainstream scene. The places where Mac is able to differentiate himself are where he demonstrates his greatest inconsistencies. On the more hard-hitting tracks his concepts are flighty while on the more conceptual and thought provoking tracks, his choruses are generic.
Obviously Mac Miller is still young. He’s only 23 and he might just need more time to decide what kind of rapper he actually wants to be moving forward. There are some terrific lines and hard-hitting beats on”GO:OD AM,” but without those solid differentiating characteristics you pretty much have to already be a Mac Miller fan to appreciate the intricacies of this album.
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