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“Clarity doesn't remove the desire to live, quite the opposite, it simply makes one unsuited for life.“
A recently edited article published in the “The Guardian” analyzes a significant trend in pop music over the last forty years, namely the loss of that boisterous optimism followed by the spread of a more critical pessimism, which seemed to reach its peak in the 2010s.
This is partly due to the alternation of less carefree genres that have managed to captivate the masses over the years, and partly because society itself is experiencing constant turmoil.
I start from this unusual premise to present the subject of this review, “Watching Movies With The Sound Off” by the late Mac Miller, released in 2013.
Why?
To answer the question, we need to take a leap back in time by a few years.
Mac Miller is a white young man, not very attractive, but full of ambition, raised by a wealthy family in Pittsburgh, with an interesting musical background: he's a multi-instrumentalist and he's passionate about rap, so much so that at just 15 years old, he already had a clear idea of his priorities, which were to make it as an artist.
Media attention would come between 2009 and 2010, with the release of the first Mixtapes which received a lukewarm reception in terms of criticism but steadily grew in popularity among the public.
The formula is that of carefree and cheerful rap (later identified with the term “Frat-rap”), focused on parties, drugs, and sex, built on cloudy and delicate productions, with ethereal voices in the background and a few delicate sprinkles of synth. A proposition that fits well in the joyful atmosphere of American colleges and captures the playful spirit of adolescence and early twenties.
But then, you grow up.
Something happens between 2012 and 2013, like a sort of painful realization: every party is bound to end, and the feeling that accompanies the next phase is a mix of bitterness and melancholy.
Thus, carefreeness becomes increasingly faded and sadness takes over.
Rap becomes denser and more introspective, navigating the tortuous paths of its own mind, bouncing from one side to the other. First assessments are made, the present is looked at critically, the future with some fear and the past with nostalgia.
Miller's writing becomes more sober, without completely giving up on some juvenile digressions, a remnant of his youthful phase. A concession we can allow him.
On the other hand, to support all these flights of fancy and mental musings, the sounds also become more multiform, and those bright hues give way to more smoky and rarefied atmospheres. Vocal samples are still present, but they become darker, almost gothic, and jazz digressions with a more nocturnal appeal begin to find their own expression.
Clams Casino, Flying Lotus, Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler The Creator are the suitable travel companions, the only ones capable of translating into music the thoughts of the then 21-year-old Mac, who with this album begins the second phase of his career, the adult one, which over the years will offer remarkable products, establishing him as one of the most interesting artists of the past decade until his untimely passing in 2018.
But that's another story.
Mac Miller – Watching Movies With The Sound Off
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