The beats on GO:OD AM have a New York, boom-bap feel, with lots of jazz samples and harder drums, and it’s both more varied and more upbeat, from the trap-sounding beats of 'When in Rome' or the Chief Keef-featuring 'Cut the Check' to love songs like 'ROS' or the Miguel collaboration 'The Weekend'. Getting through the 16 tracks on Blue Slide Park was like an endurance test, and even the deeper and much-improved Watching Movies started to sound interchangeable before it ended. And on the transparent, relaxed GO:OD AM, he sounds like someone’s troubled little brother made good: from the album’s opening horns, you can sense that this is a victory lap for Mac, a homecoming.įrom start to finish, this is his most refined and well put-together project.
Who is Mac Miller? On Blue Slide Park, he was a childish 'frat rapper' who made dumb jokes about smoking weed and referred to the vagina as a 'cooter.' On the claustrophobic Watching Movies With the Sound Off, he was rapping in a pitched-down voice alongside Earl Sweatshirt and Ab-Soul about friends lost, drugs consumed, depression, and the trappings of success.
