Dissect - BONUS - Mac Miller Song Draft, Q&A, and More

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

Recorded live on Greenroom, Cole and Cam end Season 9 by choosing their favorite 9 Mac Miller songs followed by a Q&A session with the audience. Then we hear the remaining listener submissions sharing their biggest takeaways from Swimming In Circles. Follow Dissect on Tiktok, Instagram, and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome everyone to a special episode of Dissect. I'm your host, Cole Kushna, and today we are recording live on Green Room. I'm joined by co-writer of season nine, Camden Ostrander. What's up, man? Hey, man, how you doing? Doing good, excited to kick this thing off. Like I said, we're recording live tonight on Green Room. We're going to do a MacMiller song draft, which is essentially me and Cam we're going to select

or draft our favorite MacMiller songs across his entire discography, which is a like frankly impossible. We're going to do our best. We're going to select nine songs in celebration of the finale of season nine. But before and then afterwards, actually, we're going to do a live Q&A here on Green Room. So we're going to be taking questions from the chat room, but also we're going to bring people up on stage and they'll be able to talk to us directly through the Green Room app. So I'll explain the rules of the song draft in a second here. But first I kind of want to talk quickly with you, Cam, about season nine.

We're at the end of what is, I guess like we started out and I was like, okay, we're going to do 14 episodes. Or was it like 13 episodes? It was like 13 or 12 maybe. And somehow we got to 18 scripted episodes and a handful of bonus episodes. We couldn't stop. Couldn't stop. I think once we got into circles, it was hard to pass up certain songs. It was obviously hard to pass up, you know, a handful of the songs.

But ended up just being bigger than expected. You've been working on the season since. When did you start writing? You started writing before me. So when did you start that? Started writing the beginning of last year. So it's been more than a calendar year, which is kind of crazy. but I think Woods, I think the first words on Woods were like from February 2021.

How are you feeling? The year later, kind of immersed in Mac for a year? I'm feeling very grateful. Like, thankful for all of this experience. It has been an incredible learning experience, especially like for my own emotions and my own mind. So I feel like I have changed a lot, gone through a lot. I think the audience also has, and like we all take our journeys with this stuff. So how I'm feeling is very thankful for everything to happen and very ready to keep moving forward, which would be nice.

Yeah, yeah. It was, you know, I've done nine in a couple of many seasons of this. I would say in terms of emotional intensity, I would say probably this one, if I'm just sticking to the music alone was probably the heaviest. and obviously I've done like analyze heavier works like you know Beyonce's lemonade comes to mind you know Kendrick's albums come to mind but I think those are so narratively concise where you can kind of like lose yourself more in the story of it and there's obviously emotion to those albums but with Mac it's like there's not a narrative to kind of there's you know there's central ideas, but there's not a narrative you can kind of cling to, and what you cling to is emotion,

at least for me. And it was just like, okay, you know, you sit down and you're trying to, you know, capsulate what he might have been feeling and expressing in each of these songs. And it's like, it ends up being just a really emotional journey, at least for me, and I would be curious to hear your thoughts on this. Yeah, I don't know. I just felt myself feeling a lot, and especially comparative to past seasons. And I think that's one thing about Mac. He was so gifted at was just communicating emotion in a way that was relatable. And you can just, you just felt it at a very visceral gut level. Yeah. The way this, you set, like for me at least, I sat in every moment of every song. And you kind of, like with the lessons of presence, you kind of sit in it. And,

everything kind of like washes over you and you try and like feel all that you can feel. And with all this, with Max your genius on this is like how it's, he's capturing the all over human beingness of it. He's capturing so much in every moment moment. So when you're really trying to be receptive to it all, I mean, I don't know. I'm not trying to be like overdramatic. There are moments when like this was just overpowering for me. Yeah.

So it's taken a while, but I'm like happy that it's happened, which is good. Yeah, I guess like what, what is there something that stands out in your mind conceptually? like we're going into it you weren't totally or even partially aware of that kind of surprised you or you know something that you took away from studying the work for you know over a calendar year I definitely don't think I was expecting it to last this long there were certain moments that were heavy than I expected self-care comes to mind and I think I did and we spoke about this months ago right because again I have how long this is taken but like self-care care I think does come to mind. It's like that one took so long and I wasn't ready for the whole

journey with that. Yeah. And I think that what happens with Mac a lot is like it's a very personal experience for everybody who listens to him. And because of how he expresses himself, everybody's able to latch on and have their own experience with the music. So for me, in the writing process at least, I was very much concerned with how everybody felt. And trying to capture that in the writing is almost an impossible task. And trying to think of all these different beautiful experiences that everybody has with his music, it's a lot to think about if that makes sense. Yeah.

No, yeah. Yeah, because there is like an inviting quality to his music that I think goes along with that kind of emphasis on emotion. You know, one of the more common comments that, you know, I would see on social media about the season is just like people seeing themselves in Mac. And again, that's that's definitely different than a lot of the seasons I've done in the past where, yeah, you're just feeling a very personal connection to him because of how honest he was because he kind of just didn't really wrap it in a lot of metaphors. Obviously there's wordplay and stuff, but a lot of the album, both albums, probably especially circles, is very direct, you know. And I think his production, especially even on swimming and circles, really there's an intimacy where a lot of times it almost feels like you're kind of in the same room with him because there's not a lot of production elements going on, especially with circles. That works, yeah. And so, yeah, I think, and I think for me, like conceptually, I was just so blown away by the simultaneous thing, which we've harped on a lot of. a lot throughout the season, but it's not just talking about the good and the bad and the highs and the lows. It's like somehow expressing them both simultaneously and that being the concept of the album of like, you know, life is this oscillation to the point of simultaneity between highs and lows. I think more and more that's true. It's just the way that we consume things now. And just his just doing that on a micro level.

and then seeing how it like started to like, well, not started, it was on a macro level too, like very thought out, very intentional in terms of like the concept of swimming in circles, like embodying those yin and yang characteristics all the way down to the merch that we talked about all the way down to, you know, the album art of swimming. Just every little detail along the way was so thorough, complete, intentional. And like, all encompassing like it was all very fluent and like complete together as you know um there there doesn't there wasn't a lot of like oh this like doesn't fit you know there was not a you you get when you analyze music and albums specifically there's some song sometimes that are like yeah this song doesn't actually fit with the theme and you're kind of reaching for connections and stuff but with mac it was just consistent uh from this is very very dense motivic foundation to everything, especially with the writing process when he talked about just like,

just writing what felt true and honest. And that being the theme for him, I think he's how he phrased it in the Zane interview, but like how tightly wound almost it was, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, definitely congratulations on a wonderful season. Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, we did it. We did it. Yeah, it's been a long journey. Obviously, like, all praise goes to Mac, But I do, at this point in the season, try to, I'm really bad at, like, stopping and appreciating a complete, completed thing. I'm one that just, like, likes to go onto the next thing. But, you know, this tonight was, you know, partly to kind of enjoy, celebrate. And obviously thank not only you, but everyone that's listening now, everyone that's listened to the season.

It's definitely a special one. Like, again, I've done over 10 of these now. And this one felt special, is what I would say there. Absolutely. So let's move into the song draft. So we've done a couple of these now, but I'll explain, I guess, the rules. There's not really rules. It's all the rules.

The regulations. Yeah, it's like, so essentially it's like modeled after an MBA draft. We did this with faces where essentially you're like drafting your top picks. if you were drafting a player that you wanted on your team. So essentially we're like creating teams of songs, our favorite Mac Miller songs. This is going across his entire discography that includes mixtapes, that includes side projects,

that includes, I mean, really anything was fair game here. So how it's going to start is Cam, I'm giving Cam first pick. So he gets to pick his favorite song, and then it'll come to me, and I'll pick my favorite song, and we can't pick the same song twice. Um, so if he picks one of my picks, I have to scratch it out and essentially go to the next. Um, so other than that, there's not really any rules. Am I missing anything? We're doing our favorites. Yeah. Okay. And we're going to miss so many. Yeah. I feel very like, I feel almost a little nervous with his incredibly vast discography, all the stuff that there is. We're going to miss so many people's favorites. So I just want to say, we love it all. I just, I don't know. I'm trying to pick my. Right. Like, yeah, inherently there's like a hierarchy established with these things, which is like, it's so dumb.

But it's like, it's just a format to talk through songs in a fun way, hopefully. But yeah, I mean, this was so tough. Because, I mean, one thing is just stack. Like you, I mean, he passed with me as 26. And it's like, like, you look at his discography when you're going through something like this and you're just like, wow. Like just the studio albums alone, but then you consider the mixtapes, all the side projects, all the unrelated. lease material. Like,

oh, can I? Wait, are we allowed? I mean, some of it, no, some of it, no.

But yeah, it's a little touchy because, you know, you know, just, just, he didn't put it out

himself, so it's always that, you know, gray area of like, should I be listening to this? Yeah. But you know,

there's just so much there is behind the scenes still. I'm curious to know if we're ever going to, those will see the light of day, but,

uh, anyway, so yeah, the song draft is, is essentially that. So with the first pick, in the 2000 what year is it?

2009 2009 yeah 2009 um goes to you camden oestrander um all right the first pick

I think is kind of clear at least to me it is the crown jewel of swimming as we called it 2009 there's there's no way I'm going to sit here and look at max

discography and not pick the LeBron James of it all this is like this is a master piece in one of the true senses of the word. I think that our episode touches on a lot of it, but there's some of it that you can never describe how beautiful it is.

And especially with like the musical discussion that you came up like, it was just beautiful to me. To like be a part of writing it, looking at the lyrics, but then looking at the music and everything that came out of it, I am in awe of it every time I think about it. When we look at everything Dissect is covered, we're talking about these incredible artists, all these incredible accomplishments.

I think that it is a real testament to Mac that 2009 stands up there with the absolute best of the best. Everything that this show has touched, anything that, like, human beings, like 2009 is one of those things that's beyond me being able to talk right now. if that makes any sense. No, it does. I mean, that's the, I mean, I've talked about this many times on the show where there's only so much you can articulate with words. I mean, it's why we have music. It's 2009 is a perfect example of why we even make music and why we even listen to it because it expresses something that we can't express with words alone. Obviously, Max's words on that song are beautiful.

but if you're just reading that on the page or if he's just saying them casually in a conversation, it's not going to strike. You know, the music elevates the emotional kind of resonance in a way, especially on a song like 2009 that is so honest. And so, I mean, we learned that, you know, a good portion of it was a freestyle,

which I just love conceptually because you think, okay, here's what is arguably his best song. I think it's definitely in the, running objectively in the running right um and it's a you know it speaks to like one his skill like swimming in circles to me is like everything led up to this moment for him artistically and to be able to have your best song or arguably your best song be a freestyle in part is just it's such a like cathartic conceptual even like and it reflects the song exactly yeah when we when we talk about him capturing the passage of time,

but all time being now, the idea of 92 till infinity being captured in the number, it's almost incomprehensible how many things came together for this. But the fact that like the unending passage of time or whatever we call that, the unending passage of time can only be met with an unending experience of that time in the moment. And that that's what he did when he made it.

And that that reflects everything it captures for us. right and down to the concept of the song itself being the door and him being retrospective and kind of like yeah in part embodying that concept of everything leading to this moment just being present again the freestyle aspect kind of speaks to just being present with the music with yourself with your emotions with your past with your future like everything aligning to yeah this very cathartic and understated but like very very powerful, powerful song. And then like, come on.

Okay, so it's one thing to have, it's one thing to have the, 2009, the song. Like, with the piano sample, you could have just started it there, and it would have been brilliant and amazing. We'd probably be still talking about it in the same way.

But then to have the strings, to have the string opening, Oh, yeah. Usher you into this world is like, oh my God, that string opening, is one of my favorite passages in all of music, I can say, pretty safely now. It is so beautiful.

It just does the job that I was supposed to do in terms of just like, yeah, kind of like the grand doors opening up, like the literal doors he's talking about opening up. And like just like I imagine like when a feather falls and it like wavers back and forth, back and forth slowly until it hits the ground. Like that's what I feel like that string open is in a way where it's like it's just it's just bringing you softly gently into this world. Man, I mean, yeah, we should probably move on because we're we got a lot of lot of songs ago. Yeah, we spent another 45 minutes talking about this, but great choice. That's number one. It was on my, it was in my top three. But it didn't actually, it wasn't my number one.

It could have easily been my number one. And this is where the arbitrary, like, bullshit of this format comes into play here because all these could easily be number one. But so my number one choice, number two in the draft is once a day. Oh, okay. So once a day, it wasn't always my favorite. It was always been like my, ever since I first heard it, it was like, okay, it's actually like what really circles, generally speaking is what really, really sold me on Mac, not sell me on Mac, but it's what really. really capture me for the first time with Max music. I love swimming.

Circles is eternal. Yeah. Yeah. I love swimming. Obviously, I like his older stuff, but there's something about circles that just put him over the edge to me where I kind of put them in that top tier for just me personally of like enjoyment of listening.

And once a day encapsulates, well, let me talk about the song. Okay. Before I kind of like do the whole conceptual thing because I think as a song it's beautiful and perfect and it's just the versatility to end his entire if we're if we're looking at circles as the end of his catalog once a day being the last song like how perfect is it that it's just mac on a on a synthesizer but let's just call it a keyboard like just him and the keyboard a little light percussion but like it's just Mac and the keyboard, right?

And like we did in the episode, it's like you come from kids, you come from projects before that. And just to like end your discography with this song, I just feel like it just encapsulates the entirety of his artistic career in a really beautiful way. It encapsulates like the evolution of Mac Miller of Malcolm McCormick as an artist, musician, as a person. I just love that about it

but also just it's such a just gorgeous song like the chord progression is beautiful it has kind of some of my favorite harmonic tricks that I kind of went into on the episode but and just the concept of it like fitting in perfectly with

the circles motif with swimming in circles obviously there's the ending that you know we've explained that already with it connecting back to the intro but as a song like I don't know it's just there's something about the song that every time I hear it it just it really moves me hearing John Bryan like tell the story of him witnessing Mac recording it and like being in the other room and like bawling his eyes out I don't know it just and also like maybe this is a good time and we're going to shorten these as our explanations as we go but yeah I did what at some point want to share just briefly my experience um so I don't think I've done it on the show that I don't think I've ever talked about about me. I think you need to talk about it. Okay, so yeah, like when Circles was first released, before it was released to the public, Max Estate held a handful of listening parties,

very intimate parties the wrong word, listening sessions of the music of circles. I was fortunate enough to be invited to one. This was, you know, early, might have been late 2019. I think it's late 2019. And it was in L.A. So I flew to LA. It was held at Conway Studios, which is like where Mac recorded a lot of these later works and a lot of the stuff with John Bryan. So we were literally sitting in the room with Mac's manager, with John Bryan was in the room. A few other, or it's like probably about 30 people, 30 to 50 people, I would say. And John Bryan gives us very elegant speech, awkward, elegant, you know, exactly how.

John Bryan is, yeah, very thoughtful, kind of just going into his experience with Mac recording these songs and then kind of giving insight into how he kind of finished the album. And then we just all sat there in pretty much complete silence. He hit play on the record. The room was like very dark and there was like a render like red lights mostly, dim dimer red lights and we're just in the studio where this album was a lot of it was recorded and just we got to hear it from front to back and there were tears multiple people and tears

obviously um i don't think i'll ever forget hearing circles the song for the intro for the first time and then mac comes in and says this is what it looks like right before you fall and it's like at that point this is the first thing we've heard from mac since his passing and that's the line that you hear in the room where it was recorded right and it's like the first thought i had it was like like this is a ghost like he's like with us like yeah he's in the room with us through the music obviously

nothing like supernatural but like he's in the room with the music like the music like he's in the room and just going through you know I can very vividly remember just each song being amazed with like just you know when everyone's first

experience hearing circles like you're doing this like you had this like this was where you were going. And then getting to once a day and just like, I didn't know that it was the last song at the listening session, but like, you know, you hear that final chord and it just ends and you're in the room and it's just absolutely silent. And it was just, I don't know, like there was a gravity in the room that was palpable.

Like there was a, I don't know, I can't really describe. there was just a weight in the room that was like very real. And, you know, we sat there in silence for a while. And then John Bryan, I think I said a few more words. Ask for questions, but like no one asked a question. Like we are all just kind of like in our own emotional space. Yeah, I don't know. It was, I mean, it was an experience of a lifetime.

Like I'll never forget that experience ever. And I was very fortunate to have that experience. So I just wanted to say that at some point. So once a day is my top pick. So let's go. Let's transition into your second pick. Cool. All right.

Second round, we're getting, I feel nice about this because we're moving outside the parameters of swimming in circles. I'm going to go ahead and pick Dang. featuring Anderson Pack Divine Feminine. This is one of the greatest jams of all time. All right. Anderson Pack

Dissect Level Artist. Amazing, incredible feature on this. And it's obviously like one of the biggest hits. One of my favorite parts about this song is that Pac recorded this thinking about, you know, loss of a loved one, whereas Mac was talking about like love and like

a relationship. And in Mack's description of this, he's like, you know, I had one way of thinking about this. He had another way of thinking about this. And I was like, can we bring these together? And when Mack talks about everybody having their own experience with art, you have a beautiful, incredible amazing song where you have two amazing artists bringing these two different experiences together. And how amazing it is that we get to see that, that the product of that is something that's so enjoyable. And I just think this song is going to live forever. Like this is, One of those things. Yeah.

Dang was on my list too. It wasn't as high as yours, but it was on the, I was like, we're going to talk about dang. I was going to make sure of it because it's such a bop. And I think it speaks to, like, we obviously were going to be drawn emotionally to a lot of the slower stuff or like more introspective stuff, which, you know, dang is. But it's so fun. Like, he was so great, especially towards the end of making fun, danceable.

Like this song live, if you've ever. if you haven't seen the performance on what late night show is it do you remember it was it Colbert it's it think it's Colbert yeah yeah um is it like incredible um and it was just so fun um and it's produced by pomo which like he also produced what's the use he also produced ladders so it's like obviously pomo is given that like fun special sauce yeah like and to have Anderson on there it's just a perfect for like it's exactly

what it needs to be like for a song like that like it's it's exactly what it should be I love it it's like for me it's like yeah you can have a song like once a day but you could also have a song like dang like yeah and you also have a song like you know name Annie off of faces

you know what I mean like just you can have this variety yeah it's incredible like the range is just like incredible I don't know anything else on the song it seems like Twitter has really taken a liking to Max's description of how he doesn't need food and that that is going to move on as a meme forever

and I just think that's beautiful go back yeah he has genius annotations about it I'm sure you've read it because he has the video where he's talking and it's so great it's so great yeah all right yeah great pick I love that was high too

what do you got So my second pick, I guess it's the fourth pick in, no, yeah, fourth pick in the draft. I got to go with good news. All the, like my top three were once a day good news in 2009. It's like all the emotional, like, I mean, that's just my shit. And good news is like, I promise not all of my picks are from circles, but. And again, like a lot of, a lot of like what I said about once a day applies to good news. news, you know, I think the production on it is for me what really drives it over the top. I love

John Bryan. I think I've probably said that on our last episode, but John Bryan before Mac was one of my favorite producers. He's composed music for a lot of my favorite films. He produced Firon Apple's second album, When the Pond, which is one of my favorite albums of all time. So I've been a fan of John Bryan forever. And good news, I feel like, is the best. version of their collaboration. Because you get that back story that John Bryan goes into with Zane Lowe about like, you know, Mac and you touched on in the script, like Mac not really thinking that that chorus was supposed to be the chorus for the song and then John Brian pushing him to be that vulnerable. So you get that kind of collaborative, you know, it couldn't exist without that relationship between John Brian and Mac Miller and that mutual respect. but just the

one of the biggest surprises musically for this season was I always assumed those the plucking sounds up until I actually wrote it in the script and then realized I was wrong those plucking sounds I thought forever were pizicado strings where like violin cellos they don't bow the string

they'll pick it with their fingers that makes a really percussive sound but no it's John Bryan and the guitarist Wendy Melvoin using electric guitars various like a handful of like an orchestra, essentially of electric guitars and plucking them in a similar way

to get that effect but just on guitars. Which I don't know, that's like the music nerd in me like that loves those kind of details, but I don't know. Obviously, I think the lyrics speaks for themselves. Anyone that listen to our episode, I'm not going to even go down that emotional road tonight. But just the production is like, I don't know, it was the perfect song to release after it's passing us

the first thing we heard. It obviously has like the kind of eerie coincidental stuff with his passing and all that. It just hits every level. It's, I think he's one of his best songs he ever wrote. So that's my pick for my second pick, fourth in the draft. So what do you got for your third? Third, I'm going with my pilot. I'm going with woods of circles.

I love this song so much. My partner loves this song very much. so it's very special to us. And the lesson learned from this of like we need to make our home here in the woods, for me, this was the pilot for a reason. It was because I thought that lesson was very important and ultimately something very new for me that I had to like, I still have to learn. And so I hold it like very close to me that song because of how impactful that's been.

I also am so proud. and this is just like a selfish maybe thing. I'm so proud of unearthing John Bryan controversy doing the Prince cover. Oh my God, yeah. And Mac saying that controversy, putting the questions next to each other was his favorite thing.

We have this song, his collaboration with Brian, obviously putting the questions together. Brian covering controversy as well. Finding that audio was like one of the craziest me like digging through the internet, finding that was like, oh my God. and then to be able to do the Boni Vair Kanye stuff at the end too

like that was just I mean personally for me like as far as like writing that was an incredible experience and this song is really important to me so that's that's mine yeah it's the it's the song and the script that sold me on a Mac season yeah it obviously I wanted to do

questioning it I remember this because you were like I don't is okay we'll do the pilot for this one because I don't know about it no yeah it was perfect because my My hesitancy with Mac and like, obviously, and it says nothing about the music, but it was, you know, I, you know, very seriously vet every album that I do. My biggest concern with Mac was not a lack of talent or music, musicianship or anything like that. It was just because he's so plain spoken, I was wondering, you know, how much there would be to write about because you have a very plain spoken artist, you know, you're just going to be. kind of just restating as plainly as he, you know, says it in the song itself.

Right. So obviously that was not true. You know, I was looking at it from a surface level and then you really sold that script for sure and brought out things that I didn't see, which is my favorite part about working with you is that, you know, is discovering what you think about it that's different than me. So yeah, I love this song. It's funny, the title, like, I don't think we talked about in the episode, but the title would seem like it was, we realized after the fact that it was kind of a random. Throwaway title, which is like, it kind of speaks to like the Anderson Pock, like, uh. But it just connects. Yeah, just like, get out of your own way.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just allowing that, it seemed to happen to Macs so much. Mm-hmm. just these incidental connections where, yeah, you could, you could have an argument. It's like, oh, he didn't name the song that. So, like, does it actually apply? It's like, well, it's there.

So it is attached to it. And if the intention matters to you, then it matters to you. But if you're someone that I think our approach is there and we have to treat it as if it's there for a reason. And I think it beautifully ties into the song itself. But also, like, I don't know if you would have came to that conclusion if Mack also didn't embody that concept, generally speaking in his music, right? Like, I think it transcends just the song, Woods, of that making peace in the woods, knowing that you're never going to get out of it. Right. And just coming to accepting that fact.

Like, you're going to, there's going to be issues, there's going to be problems, and that we need to make peace with that. Make the planet feel like home. Right. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful pick. What's your third?

All right. So I'm actually going to change one on the fly here. Okay, sweet. I'm going to go up one. I'm going to switch one of these around. So for my third pick, I'm going perfect circle, Godspeed from Good A.M. Which I've gone for all the very heavy hitters here. Oh, my God.

Yeah. We're going there. Go ahead. It's hard to know where to start with this song because it's like an Odyssey. in and of itself. I think conceptually, you can point to this song, maybe faces,

maybe like that little birthday wedding funeral concept in the middle of funeral might precede this, but I don't know, conceptually, let's just say early on, early Mac, earlyish Mac, conceptually, I think he really found something

with this song. Yes. Where he was able to to really articulate a concept in a short amount of time in a very meaningful way, layers with the simultaneous thing that we're talking about. So like the first half of the song is, you know, him being very confessional about this darker aspect of him,

you know, obviously goes into his drug use, which seemed pretty heavy at that time. And, you know, so that's kind of like, in a weird way, the high and then there's a low of Godspeed, which he said directly he wanted to write Godspeed from a lower place and it's more of a reflective, you know, the reflective quality of Mac kind of looking at the first half and giving us like a different perspective on the same

subject. You have that bridge with his, you know, actual voicemail that his brother left him because he, Mac didn't come home for the holidays because he, this is what I read. hope it's true that he was, you know, was his drug use at that time was like pretty heavy. Right. And his, you know, brother was worried about him and, you know, sent him this, this really touching voicemail that bridges these two halves together. There's the, obviously, the perfect circle concept we talked about in the season where it's like, can you draw a perfect circle? It's like, no. It's like ties in again with this woods concept of like, we need to be accepting that we're not perfect, you know,

I think early in his career, he was using drugs to escape that feeling that like, okay, things aren't all right. I don't know what to do with this. So I'm going to escape because after he says, you know, can you draw a perfect circle? He talks about, I forgot the line exactly, but he talks about like it's a pretty clear drug reference. Anyways, but then there's like, there's a detail, which I'm sure you've caught, but I'll point it out for the listeners. If you listen carefully in the intro of the song, there's a backwards voice. a voice played in reverse, which is Max's voice

that you hear at the end of the song in Forward saying says, Yo, Vin, it's the morning, it's time to go to work. So, like, that's, the song is a literal circle. Like, he has the reversed of it and then the forward version at the end. So it's like you can literally draw a circle around the song.

So there's just like conceptually so much going on here. The brutal honesty of it all. like I think he just really got something. And then like the, say nothing of like the sample, like that sample is so sick. If you look into the backstory of the sample, it's like about, oh, I'm blaking now. It was in the 60s. It was right after, I want to say it was like a terrorist attack, a race driven terrorist attack. It was written about that.

So it's like in the music that is sample, it's like the haunting energy is clearly there. Yeah. So, and then obviously, then he ends like on a Kanye reference of Good Morning, which I was really great. Anyways, I can talk about this song forever. It's my whatever pick it was,

I'm already forgetting. It was third. Third, okay. Third, yeah, and people need to go to the NPR interview Mac does with Tribe Club Quest where they talk about that song and what going to work means.

Folks need to look that up because Mac talks about it and it's really beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. fourth pick yeah fourth pick all right uh fourth pick uh i guess this kind of plays off this the last thing you were saying but this is the song that made me cry the most this last year year and a half uh is best day ever off best day ever um specifically the music video if possible um this

really wrenched my heart apart continuously every time i saw it and it's beautiful and being able to look back at it because Mac in live performances sometimes called it like the first song he was like musically proud of or that he thought would like stand the test of time. And in one intro live, he's like, this is the one where I can be a human if you just try. And like how beautiful this song is, how it was so early, how it captures his youthful energy, but also I think is something that's going to last. And yeah, again, like this, I can't get through this song. Like without tears. And it's beautiful. And so I'm picking that best day ever.

Yeah. Beautiful. I like some of Mac's early stuff, getting some love here. Have to, yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

yeah. It was tempting for me to like try to balance out my, my picks just to like make it feel proportional. But in the end, I was like, I'm just going to do my favorites. You got to do your favorites. You got to do my favorites.

Got to be true. Yeah. All right. So just for the sake of time, I'll just keep it moving here. All right. fourth pick is come back to Earth. Oh yeah.

Again, you could kind of see a theme with my picks here, especially once a day, good news, and now come back to Earth. You know, it's the collaboration between John Bryan and Mac. It's the water sounds that establish that motif that runs through every single song of swimming. It's all the motivic, like, swimming, the circular aspect of the song.

like it establishes this double album perfectly. The chords are beautiful. It has one of my favorite techniques in terms of like chromatic descending notes, if anyone's familiar with those, but it's a technique that always gets me every time. And there's a lot of seventh and rich harmonies in the chords themselves, which I think speaks to like Max's continual evolution of not only production, but just as a pianist, as a harmonist, as a composer.

There's some really cool stuff harmonically going on in this song. And I'm sure John Bryan helped with some of that and taught, you know, it seemed like John Bryan, who is a master of core progressions, was teaching Mac a lot. And I think Mac found a lot of inspiration in their relationship. So, yeah, and then there's obviously like the ties to so it goes conceptually. The amount of versions he went through too. Right.

He was like, and then it being like, come back to Earth. Yeah. And it being like a throwaway, not a throwaway song, but one that almost didn't make the album. Like he wrote it,

forgot about it somehow. Like what? And then dug it up and like, okay, this is going to be your first song on arguably your best project. Like, okay,

you just got that in the vault. Just have it. Yeah. Um, so I don't know if I need to elaborate. It's, it's a beautiful song. I would like it to see,

and like, I'll see TikTok like rankings of swimming songs. And it's always near the bottom. him somehow and I'm just like no like give it a chance I don't know if it doesn't have drums always songs without drums like people will skip over but like no give this song a chance it's perfect it's beautiful it's like just the right length to start an album and then it makes like you know this next song hard feelings with when the drums come in it makes that even more impactful because you haven't heard drums yet and it starts right away with drums on that song so

anyways it's a it's a I love this song I love it love it so cool yeah all right pick number five i'm going with the second option for the pilot what's the use existential and dismissive simultaneously going on it is what it is till it ain't thunder cat the greatest baseline of the 21st century yeah i think that holds up huh i think that i think that i think that claim holds up who look thundercat is one my favorite musicians of all time him and mac everything they touch is beautiful. I wish I could have just picked nine of their things, but they don't exist for all of us yet. They are the greatest. I love Thundercats so much. I hope he's good. He seems good when we saw him live. He seems doing great, and it makes me so much so happy. And this song, the way that it's

simultaneously asking the most important question and throwing away all the questions is so perfect. I love this song. And I knew it wouldn't get picked early, so I held it back. Yeah. Yeah. Now this was one of the bigger surprises for me again Pomo on the production but he also gets a damn funk in there He gets Snoop dog on the track so it becomes this tribute to like funkadelic music G funk music like it really embodies like The history of hip-hop which he was so fluent in you know like even from the start of his career like he gets Paid as a frat rapper but if you go back to some of those early works Especially like kids and stuff it's like you could tell he's like fluid in tribe called quest like he's like absolutely and if you're hear him in interviews, you know, it was very clear that he understood the history. And I feel like

he made a lot of really cool decisions with what's he use, understanding, hearing that vibe, you know, bringing in those collaborators. And then the cool story of Thundercat, that being the first baseline that he plays to the song, like, what? And then the beautiful, like, bridge, that bridge that comes out of nowhere, with all the harmonies. Like, that doesn't need to be there, but you got Sid, you got Snoop Dog, you got, Thundercat, Harmony Voke? What the? Come on.

Yeah. That's, yeah. Great song. Great pick. Okay, so this was a late edition for me. Okay. For my next pick. I really, actually today, this song, I always like this song, but really it clicked today.

Okay, cool. And it was. Love when that happens. For a very specific reason, subjective reason, but it's Avion from watching movies with the sound dog. Damn. That was my watching movies pick. That's the one.

Okay, so this song, like, okay. He found, like, so you can trace, like, faces. I feel like this is where he found the faces sound on this song. Yes. He found that cadence. He found that kind of, like, psychedelic, inspired stream of consciousness, weird. Like, I don't know, like, just even listening, I wrote down the opening lyrics because it's, like, concoctions of homantoshans launch in a bottle rocket done being nice i'm here for your life

and all the profits i'm not your conscious you nuts almonds and hoggins gosh andos auction off your grandfather's watch from the holocaust like it's like okay one thing like what bro go like so it's it means like mf doom meets early mn mnm meets like bob dillon in the mid 60s when he was like stream of consciousness jack carrowack all that who yes but then you like you like you look and it's like oh but Actually, there's like a through, like there's like a Jewish thread that runs through all of this. So it's like, why, how do you get to Holocaust at the end? It's like, no, actually, Hagandaz is the, is the ice cream that is kosher. Hamintosh and it's like sets the stage for this thread.

And it's like, so it's like, you get the stream of consciousness, but it's also like very articulated put together. Yeah. And then, okay, so this is what really sold me on it. The sample, do you know where the sample is from? No, I only realize this today. I don't know. Pixar's Up The theme of Up

Oh my God So once you I'll play it here for everyone But So essentially he Pitches it lower But once you hear it in high pitch It's you'll

Are you familiar with that movie? Yeah Okay so like I love that movie But then like And that specific of that theme Is like heart wrenching But it's called Avion

It's about He was inspired to write this about migrating birds. He's watching a documentary about migraine birds essentially. So that's where this avion kind of, and he talks about, you know, bird in the sky being high. But like it's the movie up. Like half the movie takes place in the sky.

Yeah. Like, come on. It's like so cool. Yeah. This one sets the stage for me. When we talked about the simultaneous swimming and flying, metaphor that's really prevalent on swimming, those parallels work together when you talk about watching movies with the soundoff and the turtle

incredible like the turtle movie watching that while this song plays so you're watching the turtles watching the fish swimming while the music's about flying like that simulton 80 really was captured back there and i didn't even make that connection up as a movie watching movies at the sound up like duh like yeah and then it ties into the childhood thread that we kind of touched on throughout the season of like being inspired by childhood art of it being kind of psychedelic and then he's coming on the track with psychedelic lyrics, like, come on. Damn.

So that's my pick. That might have been, actually might have needed to be higher. Like, I don't know. I just fell in love with that song all over today. It really clicked for me. Yeah,

that's a perfect one. Yeah. All right, next pick. All right. For me, I can't not pick. I want to have some more fun.

I'm going to pick another great banger. Diablo off faces. Yeah. I love this damn song. This sample of the innocent. So good. Oh, I love this damn song. Yeah.

The music video that they released, like the teaser version, I love watching that. It's like so much fun. He's spitting incredible bars. Okay. And one of my favorites is probably Vince Staples' favorite. But if she don't love me, then just lie to me. Mack saying that, being that real. Vince Staples said that, like, as proof that Mac was a great.

rapper and that's true to this day forever Diablo that's the one right yeah i love how like recognized mac was from his peers he got that he got the respect from people like vince which from someone like vince i don't think it's necessarily easily getting get his respect but um there's no you've got to earn it for viz you have to yeah for sure um that's a great pick my next pick is actually from Faces 2. It's friends. Oh yeah. I talked about this on our faces episode. If you haven't listened to that one, check it out. But I love this song. I don't need to go on too much. I love the Miles Davis sample. I love how he interacts with Miles Davis because it ties into a whole like friends, hallucinogenics, being in the sanctuary, losing track of time, like seeing ghosts and all this, like talking to Miles Davis in the intro of the track. is just like so fire perfect so like and then like the sample that he chose like is so hallucinogenic

and like kind of goofy but in a dark way um and just like the obviously there's just bar after bar in the song but it really like for me like encapsulates the environment of the sanctuary with people coming in and out him saying close to friends analyzing new faces tying into the faces theme like not knowing if it's day or night and like I don't know no, just for whatever reason, like, if I think of faces, this is kind of like the song, I feel like really kind of, if I had to choose one song, I would choose this one to like kind of represent faces and what it is. True. So, yeah, that's my pick.

I don't know. What do you, did you, what pick are we on? We are on, we're going to be on pick seven. Seven? Okay. I'm going to pick seven. And I'm still doing fine. You haven't, yeah, I'm good.

All right. Pick seven. Yeah, you actually, you only took one in my song. You took 2009 was the only one I had to take off the board. Avian was going to be picked in the top nine. You got it. All right. Seven for me.

I'm surprised you didn't pick it. I thought you might is fight the feeling, featuring Kendrick Kumar and Ammona Moore. I love this song. One thing that like going back, this made me realize is like I knew this song. Like this like two years ago, whatever. Like I knew this one. Like it was stuck in my head.

So like when I revisited it, I'm like, oh, I know this song. I know all of this. Yeah. I love it. I love the running man music video, if people have seen that. The hook is incredible. I love all the vocal textures. It's just like very dynamic.

Him and Kendrick are doing like really cool stuff here. Yeah. And I think it's just so slick. You have to, I have to cut off the like whatever last 45 seconds. I can't hear all the sex noises at the end. Sorry. I can't, Mac, please. I wish you're taking that up.

Sex noises on any album. I'm like, we don't, we don't, do we need that? I don't know. Like, we don't need that. We don't necessarily. I'm sure he had a great idea. Right. And I think there's some talk of like divine feminine. There's a version with like more sex noises than divine feminine already had. Like, I don't need them at the end of this.

That's the reason you fell. But like, I love this song so much. Remove the last 45 seconds. I could listen to fight the feeling on repeat forever. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Good pick. That's my seven.

All right. All right, so we'll go back to swimming. So it goes for my seventh pick. Again, I don't know how much. I'm assuming if whoever's listening to this now is listening to the entire season, so I don't know how much I need to go into it. But there, I mean, just the title itself, like to end the project on So It goes. It's like what's the use.

It's like simultaneously confronting death. but also like shrugging your shoulders at it, right? Like disregarding it, but also acknowledging it and also like thinking it through. And obviously he's singing this through. Musically, it's really cool. It's like the only one he produced, I think entirely by himself on circles. John Bryan gets the keyboard credit at the end. But for the most part, you know, produced by Mac himself.

Just, I mean, the chorus with, you know, the community of people coming in. in and that tying in. Exactly. It's just the perfect way to wrap up the album. Obviously that outro is, I don't know what the word is anymore. Like iconic is the wrong word. It's like 2009, like the ethereal, unspeakable almost. It's just, it's perfectly executed.

It's conceptually spot on. It has the irrequality of connecting to his real life and the tragedy. there's the backstory of him listening to it right before he passed like all the weird stuff that you know it's just just weird you know which is part of what makes I think we can't acknowledge like part of what has made writing this one so tough is like sitting with that

yeah we love Mac sitting with all this trying to understand it you like in I don't know the way that I've been processing this is like I really don't throw away ideas Like I try to like really consider every possibility. So like just heaviness. Yeah. But it is beautiful. Yeah.

Yeah. I think it's kind of off the topic. But I just really appreciate because I guess it's because of the weird stuff. Like we and we said this on the on the show directly. But it's like it's only weird. It's only has the connection to death because he thought about it seriously. Which is like we can think about death. We could.

Because this is beautiful art. Right. Have to consider this. Yeah, what's the quote? I think I almost put it in the episode, but it's the quote, it's like only serious art contends, all serious art contends with death or something like that. I forgot what exactly is. And it's just like he was so, he was unafraid of confronting all things. So it's like, yeah, it does connect to his death because like he was thinking seriously about life and death.

Like he was, it was very, like a very complete, holistic examination of what this is, what, what life is, what, what are we doing here? Because part of it is. I don't know. So it's like, yeah, is it weird? Is it a weird connection or is it like, does it connect because it's true? Or it just connects. And it connects. It's like, it's going to connect because it's true.

anyways but so it goes encapsulates so much for me obviously and then the cool like homophonic phrase of so it goes in circles which is just another genius like how do you think of that and obviously it's intentional so yeah i don't know it's just it's a pinnacle max song in my opinion um it encapsulates so much about him as an artist i feel like um so yeah yeah yeah that's beautiful good pick all right we're on Eight. Two more each. Two more to round out the baseball team. All right. I picked eight. I picked this for like personal reasons kind of.

I picked Break the Law off Good AM. This is the song that I heard in the locker room that made me re-evaluate Mac. This is the song that made me because somebody else was playing Good AM. This is the song that made me go, oh, Mac Miller? And I like it? Like this? Okay, let me go back and revisit everything. Yeah.

This is the one that first like for whatever reason Break the Law was playing. I heard him say the best thing out of Pittsburgh since Kilmending with the pirates and put a bit sound like old Yeller and I was like all right I gotta go back. I had something wrong. I have to go back now.

And the fact that that for me that this is what made me go back and this is what set everything off for me. So I have to pick it. I also think it's funny that Mac has a genius explanation of that old yellow line and it's just funny.

he's like, you know, old yellow is a male dog. I took some poetic license. Like that he just like gave himself his own caveat, like makes fun of himself. Right. With this like clever thing, I don't know. All his genius annotations are like that. None of them are very serious. They're all just like.

You gotta go back. Folks, you have to go back, find Max Profile and Genius. Look at his verified commentary. It's incredible. The oldest ones are crazy because like him in a backpack in a basement talking to like a potato phone. It's insane. I haven't gone back that far. It's crazy.

All right, great. I like that one. So Dang was going to be my next pick. Ooh. So that one's off the board for me, but I did have it. So we're going back to circles. I got to go with the song circles. Yes.

Yep. I mean, again, like, these are very weighted towards the early work or the later works. But it's so hard when you do these seasons. I'm sure you know, obviously. like you develop such a relationship with these songs that obviously this is a subjective list and so I'm going to be very drawn to the ones we spent months and months and months of our lives thinking about and talking about yeah um anyways circles you know I think all that stuff I said about the listening of party applies in terms of a subjective um so the subjective part of

this pick um just hearing that opening line is just a very vivid image though I'll remember forever. It's a beautiful song. It's for me, like, production-wise, it was so weird to realize that it's like mostly just a bass guitar. True. That carries all the weight, you know, which is just not really a thing. Like, he's playing chords on the bass, which you just don't hear all that often.

And then Mac Miller and then John Bryan allowing it to stay that, you know, he said that this is what he played me. All I added was a brush symbol and I forgot something else, a vibraphone, like a very light vibraphone. So just like, I don't know, there's something about his circles, specifically the production on there. What I love about very talented artists and musicians

is without formal training, is that they find very creative ways to make songs in a way that you could never make a song if you had training. Like, to me, circle is kind of embodies that where, yeah, if you're formally trained, I'm not sure you'd ever like sit down on the bass, play chords,

and then I think that was enough to make a whole entire song out. But he did and it's beautiful and it works and it's perfect. And so I appreciate that from a production standpoint. Again, there's the intimacy factor that, you know, with these later works, it's really hard to make a song as intimate as circles, as intimate as once a day where you're stripped down, you're singing when you're not very comfortable with singing. And there's nowhere to hide in the production, you know, like a lot of music hides behind the production, you know.

But there's a vulnerability, obviously, in the lyrics, but I think it's, you know, double impactful because of the production is so reductive and so just bare and just nowhere to hide. Obviously, there's obviously the ties to conceptually circles and the musical circle and all that. And I didn't realize the circle. The song itself was actually a circle too. And again, I don't know if he's doing that stuff intentionally. I think he is, but it's there. So it hits all the boxes for me, what I look for in music, especially from Mac. So there's something about like, for me, that first chord, the first note of circles that really sets my mind at ease.

Oftentimes writing this season, I would work myself into like, almost like anxiety, like, panic like really like frenzied mind states and one like thing that I would do and kept returning to was like just start circles like and then like allow the album to take you but like that first note for whatever reason personally speaking really sets my entire body like I just like feel at ease like it helps like unlock something for me um and it's just beautiful yeah yeah yeah all right so your last pick the ninth pick all right cool I get to pick a cool one. I had like three options of like something I was going to try and on earth for this. But I'm going to go ahead and pick one of my favorite like experimental

things Mac did. Grandpa used to carry a flask featuring Mac Miller by Delusional Thomas off the Delusional Thomas mixtape. Okay, I'm not, I don't know this song at all. So explain it to me. So Delusional Thomas is this project where he is embodying this character who is like the most evil character ever. And then it's got like ties with Mac. But it's also like, Warped Mac and he has like this warped voice. This is the last song on the project and just like another project that does a featuring, because internet

featuring, okay, anyways. But he's got Tim, Delisional Thomas featuring Mac Miller. So what happens is the voice of Delusional Thomas rapping, then Matt comes in and they're like talking and there's like a line with like having conversations with myself getting into arguments and him exploring identity

and like the most evil parts of ourself are still a part of you. You have dark thoughts. You have bad impulses. Process them. Be with them. Be honest about it. When we talk about like the honesty of Mac,

like if we all tried to be as honest as Mac is, this is one of the moments where he does it. And it's in this like experimental little project that people have to go search out and find. Right. And it's crazy. I love all the side projects he did. Do not get mad at me for not doing you.

Okay. Do not get like folks, don't get mad at me at home. All right, this is the one I think. But like, I love it. And the way that they, the voices kind of weave together and they kind of really come together as one by the end. And there's like static noises and other like accoutrement

that's kind of adding to like this really cool process. It's like a really cool art piece. And I'm really glad that Mack had the ability and the freedom to experiment and explore with all this stuff. So Delusional Thomas is not like a project I'm going to listen to every day, but I love it. And I love the song. and I can't not talk about the song on our season.

So this is the last pick. Yeah, I love that he had, he just created outlets for himself to experiment. I love that. I wish more artists would do that. Because it, whatever those, it's like the process seems even more important than like the output of it, right? Which I think he understood because he didn't like market it as a thing, right? It was like he was kind of hiding behind some of the aliases. but all that stuff

like obviously fuels the next project and faces like this is right yeah so important yeah so crucial for the masterpieces

that we got so yeah that's what I'm hoping not to make this about Kendrick but I really hope Kendrick's next album oh we talked about this

we need we need the fucking weird experimental because he's he has it in him he's so weird he's so weird and it comes in flashes

um you know like we'll hear it in flashes and songs even like untitled unmastered, I think goes places that he hasn't gone like in his normal albums. And I just hope, I hope, like it's going to do well no matter what it is. I just hope it's just, I hope it's like his yeses, what it's not. Yeah, not sound like eases, but like that approach, I just hope it's not.

I want to have no idea what to think. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to be uncomfortable when I'm listening to it for the first time. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's what Nick did. He did it.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay, so my final pick, I guess maybe in the same vein, it's going to be funeral. Nice. Yeah. Kind of end on a darker note here, but there's something about this song that's, again, it ties into him just being, well, just cool, like conceptually, he has this like little short story or something in the, in the middle, you know, right in the middle of faces. Uh, with, you know, happy birthday, wedding, funeral. then Diablo right after as like the afterlife type thing.

The production is just so haunting. He's just very confessional. I love the detail of like a song called funeral using an organ as its main instrument. Obviously, organs being like attached to funerals. It's not in the streaming version, but there's the Hunter S. Thompson quote at the end of the mixtape version. that says, I know what happens to me, you and everyone else when they die. It's this passage around the Great Loop. The Great Loop.

Like perfect circles, swimming in certain. Like, he's been thinking about this forever. Yes, he was. And just, I don't know. I love this song. It's a dark song, but, you know, I'm okay with that. I love when music takes me to these places that you just don't go. every day. So that'll be my final pick. I'm curious to know the leftovers of your list. Just

rattle them off the ones that you had just in case I took too many of yours. No, you didn't take too many of mine. I guess leftovers had like doodling in the key of C-sharp, which is another like Lucy you have to go find. Everybody off circles, which is perhaps one first listen that was my favorite and just the cover we didn't talk about it. And then just a couple, I would have liked to talk about Kool-Aid and Frozen Pizza. which is great off kids. And I loved going back to kids. And then I'm just going to go ahead and say the name, Turkey Love.

We have to say it on my sect. All right, cool. But I didn't pick it, but we have to say. If you've never heard Turkey Love. Got to go talking about Turkey Love. Let's play a little bit of it here. No. I need you to explain what Turkey Love is.

Turkey, Turkey Love is like, you want to hear Mac Miller have fun for 20 minutes. Right. You want to hear somebody. It's a 20-minute song about what. Uninhibited Mac Go on. going off. My favorite is how he talks about this woman having relations with

every rapper that comes through town, but it's not schoolboy Q. No school by Q, none. No, and he's like, and I get it, you don't want it to go to school. I love their friendship. I love schoolboy. God, Turkey Love is so wonderful to return to. It's so beautiful.

Yeah, that's a great pick. My kind of leftovers was wings, colors and shapes, hand-me-downs. I actually wish I was able to talk about hand-me-downs. We talked about a lot

and we had barrel on and that was a beautiful really special. Beautiful talk. Dono. Dunos. Yeah. Nike's on my feet,

Kool-Aid and Frozen Pizza. You know we did like three songs about shoes before Nike's on my feet? That's one of the funniest things to me is like if you go back to like the earth like my machinini like highlight, there's like Jordan's on my feet.

she's wearing nikes and then finally nikees on my feet he gets it right we talk about mac experimenting and growing it's like look at the shoe songs look at the old shoe songs yeah that's funny yeah cool all right well um give us a recap one through nine uh of god of mine i have mine all right i went 2009 dang woods best day ever music video hopefully what's the use Diablo, fight the feeling, break the law, and grandpa used to carry a flask featuring Mac Miller. Perfect. All right. So I went once a day, good news, come back to Earth. No, I did Perfect Circle, come back to Earth, Avion, Friends, so it goes, circles. Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. Pretty good, but obviously there's so many songs who left off. Obviously, we're missing a million songs. Yeah.

But I don't know. I think, yeah, I mean, send us your favorite nine if you want on social media or you can drop it in the chat if you're in the green room or just tell us your favorite song. In the chat, who won? In the chat, who won? Oh, yeah. Who has, who's got the most gems actually? Oh, yeah. We're the gems going to be in? You have three more than I do.

Yeah. The people have spoken. The people have spoken. All right, so we're, Michael says, don't end this, please. We're not ending it, actually. we're just going to transfer now. Me and Cam actually have been on Zoom so we can actually look at each other

and we've been recording on our professional mics. We're going to actually now go and listen to each other using Green Room. We're going to take some questions. So if anyone in Green Room has a question for us, you can request to be a speaker. Just raise your hand. There's a little hand icon.

We're going to take some questions. If you want to pair your question with your favorite song, quickly just list the song just for time's sake. That'd be great. You can also drop a question in the chat, although they go by kind of quick, so I'm not sure we'll get to all those.

And we're going to take some questions, and then after the questions, we're going to hear the rest of the listener submissions, not you guys in the green room, but people listening at home now on Spotify, we're going to be dropping the rest of the listener submissions that you heard a piece of in the finale after these questions. So, okay, so let's take some requests.

We got Sven, I think it's the same as Sven Pierce. Hopefully I got that right. Sven, you there? Yes, sir. Can you all hear me? Yep, yep. Okay, so my number one question for you guys, and firstly, I just want to say thank you both for taking the time

to actually dissect these two albums. These two albums are very meaningful to me. And they've helped me through a lot. Um, but my question is like if you had to pick one line, um, that Mac Miller, you know, stated like what can you relate to the most? For me, it's, uh, like there's a whole lot more waiting for me on the other side from good news. Who. Yeah. I mean, that's a great pick. Um, yeah. Cam, I don't know. Do you got anything that comes off the top? I mean, it's kind of, it's difficult. Like, I always thought about this, too.

like what piece of wisdom do you pick from Mac? I think I go with it is what it is till it ain't. Yeah, that's going to be mine too, actually. Oh, damn. Oh, what I got the first pick again. I think when you think about that quote, when you think about the relationship between him and Thundercat, when you talk about that Thundercat album,

it is what it is, which also thank you so much. I'm so glad we got to talk about fair chance on the Her Feelings episode, but it really it really sticks with me and I do remind myself that quote a lot and I do think about that a lot so that one's I think the one sticks yeah I think I would just piggyback on what you said because it's not specific to that quote either right like you can find the same concept in what's the use you could find the same concept and so it goes um even just the mantra of swimming in circles like I think it was evident in a few phrases.

So for thinking conceptually about, yeah, a line, I think I can choose either or any of those that we just listed. And that would be definitely my biggest takeaway from these albums this season and probably Mack's entire discography. Just landing, where he landed before he passed was just a beautiful place to land. You know, obviously we would like to have seen it continue, but like where he got to in his 26 years is pretty remarkable. Way farther than what I think I could ever get to.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy, you know, like 26 is not, I mean, Cam, you're younger than 26. I just turned 26. I just turned 26. Yeah, it's, I just remember myself at 26. I mean, you're, Cam are very much farther along than I was. See, when I think about it, my learning experience this year has been like, you're there. It's just a matter of like seeing it that way for all of us. It's how I've seen it.

I mean, maybe that's crap. Who knows? But like, for me, the thing that I've tried to remind myself is like that you can be there right now. Right. Right. Yeah. Cool. Well, thanks, then.

Thank you guys for giving me the opportunity to ask you that question. Again, just thank you both for taking the time. to, you know, dissect a couple of albums that have helped me through a lot of struggle myself. And I, you know, I just can't say thank you enough. So I'll talk to you guys again soon, hopefully. I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. Yeah.

All right. Well, we'll do George Lazaro next. Hi. It's actually Jorge Lazaro. Oh, sorry. Oh, first of all, I wanted to say thank you for, like, did I dissecting me? this like um like swimming in circles like that the whole both albums meant a lot to me like and uh it just helped through a difficult time but uh i wanted to ask why uh okay uh why wasn't what was your

thought on thoughts on the song right and why didn't it make the cut yeah um it's the deluxe circles so i know we tried to keep it to the original album when our original talk I also know that we couldn't keep the season going so long when it came to circles. Yeah. Is there any other reasons? I mean, there was tough choices. I mean, the thinking behind. And also ending on once a day, I think was important.

That's my big thing was like for the scope of this project, which was, you know, heavily weighted towards swimming and then, you know, kind of a mini series on circles just for the logistical reasons of the show. you know there's obviously tough decisions to be made not just about right was about a lot of songs on circles that I think we would both have liked to do but yeah the clean ending of once a day it being like for me in my mind bonus songs aren't a part of the album if that not to be harsh on them but it's they weren't you know I think about the same thing with Kendrick Lamar's like good kid mad City. There's a deluxe version of that with extra songs, but Compton is the end

of Good Kid Mad City. That is the end of the story. That's the end of the album. I feel like, to me, at least with the connections we made with once a day, and how it connects to circles and it connects to all to swimming. That's the album. It was, that was the album, and that just seemed like the natural

spot, not to discredit any of the songs. I mean, I want to talk about floating. I wanted to talk about Thundercat some more. Or even like, or even like the little EP he put out before swimming like the songs are great too. Small World's buttons programs, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So yeah, that was the thinking behind that. All right, well, for sure. Well, thank you. Thank you, Jorge. Yeah, cool. Thanks, man. All right, let's jump to let's go with Jonathan, David. I'm not going to pronounce your last name. Jonathan. What's up, man? How you doing?

Hey, hey. You all hear me all right? Yep. Hey. Hey, I just want to say, obviously, you get this a lot but thanks so much for the hard work on these uh on this you know dissection you know this album or these two albums mean a lot to you know a lot of people and it was just really special so i thank you guys for that appreciate that yeah of course but my question to y'all and actually i just thought of it but uh i thought of i kind of thought of i like asked myself this question a lot after you know

listening to these two albums. But I was curious that, like, after dissecting swimming in circles, do you guys have any, like, different outlook on life or art itself? I think for me, yes, I think every, I walk away from every season with some kind of wisdom that I attempt to apply in my daily life, obviously not always successful. But there's always one thing I'll take away and think about. And I think for me with this album was exactly what we just talked about

in regards to like trying to find a single line and that's just being okay trying to accept every moment try to when you are in the bad times accept the bad times understanding the importance and the relevance of them understanding the balance and just trying to be present which Mack with himself seemed to be attempting to do

and yeah even like the cyclical nature of of highs and lows you know that going around in circles feeling like i guess also like reconceptualizing like what progress is even you know like you think of progress like linearly a lot of the times where it's like i'm going to be here and then when i get to point z i'm going to be here and it's like no it's not quite like that like you're going to go hopefully the trajectory overall if you zoom out far enough is like an ascending one in terms of happiness mental health all that but when you're in the thick of it when you're in present in the moment it's like no it's not going to be a straight line right like and you kind of have to like come to that understanding and just it helps you during the anxious times or whatever like

if you're able to kind of fall back on that you know it does help like it kind of sets your mind a little bit at ease in those moments. I don't know. What about you, Kim? I think that's a massive part of it too, but like when you try to like think of your life as like growth, it can make you panic when you think like, oh, I'm going back a bit or regressing a bit. But like when you can start to identify the patterns, to look at your life and be more present with it, I think a big thing for me was presence this season. Like when looking at Max influences or trying to figure out what they were. Like, for instance, like, the be here now, prom-doss, like, I read it.

Like, I really was taking that in. And I think that's something that's going to last with you. Also, just a continued relationship with Max work, because this is kind of, I imagine this is the first, like, dissect work where the artist is no longer with us. Yeah. But the relationship with the music exists as long as the music is listened to. And so in that way, it's its own form of, like, an eternal thing. It's its own form of an infinity. And being able to live that and really think through

that kind of is reshape my view of like looking ahead at my own life and everybody else's kind of, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you guys. Thank you for the question. That's good. All right. Let's, we'll head up to Lulu Smith. Hello. Hi. Hi. Hi. Well, first of all, I think I speak for everyone when I I just, you know, thank you for creating this beautiful season. I've been wanting to, you know, get some Mac on Dissect for a while, so I'm just, I'm very grateful that you guys did this. But I have a, I have two questions, but I'll get to my most pressing one. And it's how did you decide on doing, how did you decide on choosing Mac as well as why did you pick these two albums specifically?

yeah I'll toss it to you in a second here cam I think I'll just say because Cam was largely responsible for it but Mac was by far I think he was double the most requests from dissect listeners the next closest artist so the demand was there that forced me not to say I wasn't planning on doing Mac at some point but in terms of like why it came now like that was a big part of it and then Cam having worked with him for season seven for because of the internet and wanted to work with him again He was very interested in doing Mac And I guess I'll toss it to you Cam from there Yeah, I wanted to do Mac people want to talk about Mac I think what's happening Which is really incredible to C2 is like people are still processing His amazing work and people are kind of still sitting with everything that we've experienced with him

And I'm looking forward, like, because I wanted to do dissect on Mac. I wanted to be able to like process the work to experience this with listeners. The thing that I'm almost most looking forward to is the people that take whatever tiny step we took and do

more. The people that are able to talk about more of Mac's work, the people that are able to do more analysis, figure out more ideas about this because I think it's there. A big part of the season was like there is unfortunately, and because of like, recency, there's not enough scholarship on his work. There's not

And like, everybody loves it. We all talk about it in these ways. But I am really looking forward to the continued exploration of what he left us. Because it's here forever. And this is just one step into, like, what's next? And that's really exciting for me. Yeah. And I think part of it, too, was timing.

Like, I definitely didn't want to do it too close to his passing. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I think we needed to let circles breathe a little bit too, right? Like, I think maybe it's the most. recent album aside from the Black as King miniseries, I think it's probably the most recent album we've done, especially, definitely circles

and even probably swimming. I think Dam is close to. Dan was 2017 though, so it was right there. So yeah, I always like to let the work breathe, you know, at least a year or two, just to kind of let it set into the culture, I guess.

I think Kendrick's next album might be the only exception to that, because as soon as he puts it out, I'm probably going to start on it. But yeah, that was kind of thinking behind that. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Let's hit up Corey. Corey, how are you doing, man?

Hey, I'm doing well. You guys can hear me? Yep. Awesome. Thank you. Well, I'll start. I'm a huge Mac fan. I found out about the season and have since dived into other seasons. I know Coles mentioned a lot of the Kendrick stuff. I'm in the middle of the damn season now. And, Cam, I love a lot of the research you've done and stuff you've talked about with Mac.

So my question I really wanted to get it, you guys, kind of goes along with what Lulu said. Where do you guys stand with the estate releasing any future projects? Or do you think that his catalog at this point is at a basis where it's, you know, strong and you don't want to see additional projects added after this double series or even in today's episode you talked about the till infinity thing where do you guys stand with that as far as wanting it out as far as thinking it's a good addition to the catalog and i'll let you kind of tell me what you think yeah for me um i would say more than any other scenario i trust the estate to make the right decision so knowing how they treated circles.

Knowing a little bit of the behind the scenes about that process, I can just say like there is a very, very, very careful consideration about all things Mac. So that would be my first answer. I think I'm most curious about projects that seem to have been done that were never released. I think, Cam, you probably have some like the Mad Lib What was it, Maclib?

Maclib. Maclib. Collaboration, which someone said it was done. I can't remember who. Do you remember who? Madlib's kind of like, it's ready. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He plays bits of it at sets.

Yeah, so it's like, okay, that would be cool. Yeah. There's another one that I was thinking of that someone said, oh, the 92 tell infinity, which was, apparently was, I don't know if it was done, but it was definitely worked on a lot. Yeah. there's Thundercat music that Thundercat has said exists. Like Thundercat said that they've done an entire album at one point or something,

like a whole project. There's nothing that I love more on this earth than Thundercat and Mac. Like, come on. Like, I obviously want that. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff out there. Yeah. I think that, and I also think that like we obviously all want this music.

I think that nothing perhaps, and like, I don't know, perhaps I can't make this statement. There's nothing more important than Max family. and the people that knew Mac. And I love and trust everything that they've done. And that ultimately is what matters to me more than anything. Is their well-being and how they feel about all of this stuff? So ultimately, you know, whatever they want is what I think is right. Someone else said MacDemarco and MacMiller.

Yeah, well, yeah, they have stuff. And MacMiller's on a bit of, here comes a cowboy, or at least he was like involved in that. I don't know what's ever going to happen with that. Yeah. I obviously love them both. That would be cool. Well, thank you guys.

I appreciate both your input. Cam, I'm with you with the Mac and Thundercat. When I saw that, I think it was a tweet where he just said, it exists. Oh, my God, man. My heart went out. And I'm still waiting for it. But no, the family definitely, you know, should do what's right for everything. And, yeah, I appreciate you guys.

And I look forward to whatever season's next, man. Thank you. Thank you. So you, thanks, man. Yeah, that reminds me, too. If you want to drop on the chat, who do you think we should do next on Dissect? I'm always curious to know what people are interested in. Let's go ahead and take Michael Rodriguez.

What's up, Michael? How you doing? Hey, guys. How's it going? Good evening. Hey. Well, I mean, longtime listener. So just wanted to say, you know, I really appreciate all your guys' hard work in time. I try to spread the podcast like around everywhere. I tell everyone if you guys aren't even a Mac Miller fan or if you guys like Kendrick Lamar or Kanye,

like you guys have done some stuff before. I'm like, you guys got to listen to it because you guys put in so much hours. Like you guys deserve all the recognition that you guys can get. But I wanted to jump in. I mean, Corey took my question about the three-part albums. But I mean, let's make this a fun question. Who is your favorite Mac like all?

alter ego, like one of his alter ego. Who is your favorite one and why? It's a good question. I'm going to go ahead and say delusional Thomas, just pick up where I left off from the draft. But, like, I mean, it's kind of, like, it's fun, it's crazy, it's wild, it's very experimental. It's also kind of brave to do that,

to be like, yeah, here's like this terrible creature that I can create. And it feels like MF Doomish, like, which is very fun. So I obviously very much enjoyed that project. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe Parson Brown, which I didn't get to talk enough about, but God, I want it.

Parson Brown is such an amazing potential thing. And also if our like theory about it that we've talked about on the episode is correct, I wish somebody would talk about it. Yeah, it's interesting. I'd be interested to see where that one went because it was just getting started with that on swimming. Yeah. So I think, yeah, I mean, for me, it's got to be Larry Fisherman. it's Mac as producer.

So I'm a production guy, I'm a musician. Like, that's going to be. And it seems like he reserved the Larry Fisherman production tag to the more experimental stuff, the more mixtape-oriented stuff where, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I just loved that he was playing with these different identities and kind of allowed himself to explore,

like we talked about earlier. specifically, musically, I think it's production style. You can see the evolution of it, one, but also, like,

when you hit something like faces, where it's like very raw, definitely still like a raw as a producer. Someone, like, start to finish is, is not going to give you, like a polished production, like a,

I don't know, name your, Ferell or whoever. You know, still had a voice, you know, still had a very distinct voice on something like faces. Like, what other album sounds like faces? Like, can't really name one. And it's, and it has a sound, right? Like, it's not all over the place. It's very concise, at least in my, my ears. So I think that's got to be my answer, just him experimenting as producer, kind of learning on the job in a lot of ways, you know. I think people

forget like when you start as a lyricist I mean I guess it's different now it seems like more people now are everything all at once because you kind of have to be these days you have to be producer you have to be lyricist you have to be singer rapper and then even like a marketer you have to make TikTok videos you have to do it all I think but mac was still doing it in a time where it wasn't so common and he was I think he kind of came into production later you know and I think him learning on the job was important and having outlets for that was important. And to me, like, that's another reason why I love swimming in circles so much because as a producer, I feel like it shows so much of that evolution and where he landed was in a really,

really complete, beautiful spot as a musician, as a producer. Yeah, I agree with both of you. And, I mean, on my take, I'm a big Larry Lovestein. I love the fact that he always says that he's not a singer, but also, he does is sing and he incorporates jazz like jazz you don't even have you know like a like a like a straight beat with jazz it's everywhere but the way he just used everything and the way he sings with such confidence even though he says he doesn't have it i just that right there is like if he's getting out of his comfort zone like that's raw that's true for him and that that's one of my

favorite ones um but then also to piggyback off of seven earlier um one of my favorite lines that will forever day with me is a life ain't a life till you live it. And that got me thinking so much where I'm like, man, I don't want to, I don't know what I want to do with my life. And I thought to myself, you know what, it's because you haven't done enough. And I feel like when I heard Max say, a life in a life till you live it, I'm like, you know what, he's right. Got to be out there. You got to put yourself out there, even if it makes you feel uncomfortable. And yeah. And yeah, but thanks guys, Kam and cool. I appreciate what you guys have done. You know, I can speak for everybody that you guys, you guys killed it with these two seasons and looking forward to the next one.

Cool, man. Appreciate it. Cool. Thanks, very much. All right, we got Gabe, Gabe Hanson.

What's that, man? Hey, how are you guys doing? Hey, Gabe. How you doing? I'm doing pretty good myself. I was just going to ask you, this is my first time watching your podcast after listening to your whole swimming

podcast. And my question was like, what's your favorite outro from any of his songs? Because mine were always jet fuel and small worlds. Oh, man. That's a great question. I love that question, actually. Yeah, that is such a good question.

I've, off the top, I mean, I probably would have said this, but you did say it. Jet fuel is, talk about like a twist ending of sorts. No, there's only now, yeah. And getting to this, you're high in the sky jet fuel and then crystallizing that with some, like this very out of nowhere beautiful. I don't know like heavenly production and lyrics and singing

and autotune and like how I don't know that's a great one that's a good trying to think of other ones I mean I don't know just like self care I'm thankful I'm thankful that for self care is outro

I think I've talked about my weird relationship with self care enough but like the beginning part freaks me out and the outro does help me get to something worth or something resembling like calm at least or like understanding perfecto too yeah perfecto but perfecto the outro kind of scares me also i don't know i love it yeah yeah it's great it is it is haunting though i love his use of outroes when we talk about

like the simultaneity of different things and like showing all these different modes like i love the way he was using outroos on swimming yeah it's really cool construction i tried to do like math on them one time. I was like, okay, let's see if there's like some mathematical cool things doing. And I was like looking at them forever, but there was. Mac wasn't like, like, trying to find it and it just wasn't there. But the outos were perfect. They're really cool, yeah. I mean, so it goes as it has an outro. Like, right? Yeah. Right? Maybe that's got to be my answer. It's got to be the one. We're looking at the other ones, but like it's so it goes.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of these are hard off the top. But yeah, so it goes. But yeah, so it goes. holy, yeah, that's got to be it, actually. Small worlds, too. Like, just to switch it to essentially a jazz song at the end. Like, really cool. It's a good question, though. I appreciate that. Yeah, I think the thing that makes Mac Miller so great is that he's so genuine and especially

in his outro. So I just had that question. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. All right. Walt, how you doing, man? What's up, guys?

What's up? Um, Cam, I appreciate, if you're on the East Coast, you are up far past a teacher's bedtime. Yes, I am. Um, I'm currently in, um, undergrad for English education. Cool. Um, and we talk about all the time how you're joining the conversation rather than starting your own. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think you guys do a really good job of, um, kind of, um, maybe,

making it clear that a lot of what you're saying is speculation and not all of it can be proven and that's a good thing and especially because you referenced that Mac wanted that. How do you draw that line though between what is speculation and what you can solidify as fact or close to fact? Cam, go for it. It's all because of internet. There's, I don't know, like navigating the relationship between these things to me, is like one of my foundational things, I think, if I can say that it is. But like, yeah, I love navigating that space. I don't know if you can ever say any of our interpretation is objective.

And I'm honestly not even looking for that. It's all about the connections you make. So my hope when writing is to try to show every connection possible, to think critically about like the ones that might be there, the ones that might be intended, and then to explore the spaces where we can then make different connections. that's always my hope that's always like why

I personally like I think takes so long on some of this stuff is because I'm like trying to think of like every single thing I can think of but yeah I like seeing all the different connections so I don't know your question is an interesting one and I don't know if there's an answer

is that all that's a long way to say that yeah I think I think we're generally on the same page I think you definitely think more thoroughly than me I definitely know that. It's not.

That's for sure. I mean, that's why I like working with you. I'm, I definitely write faster than you. My approach is, I'm a turtle. Like, I'm so slow. Well, my approach is like,

it's like, yeah, it's all subjective. Like there's, I mean, unless there's the artist there, you know, we never had the artists on the show so far. You know, so nothing's objective. Like, really nothing unless you're staying in fact.

Even if they said what it meant. Even if they were like, said something, I would so say that's not it. To me, that's just... Yeah, I think what we try to do on the show is make very informed, subjective guesses or, you know... Exploration.

I pride ourselves on the research that goes into the show. You did the majority of that, Cam, on this season. But, you know, every... No matter of the season, the research process is pretty tedious. You know, no, like Cam said, no stone left unturned. So fun. It comes to the research process. I'm in the middle of the next...

I'm in the middle of the research phrase of the next series. It's reminding me of how much I love doing the research and just listening to everything the artist has said that you can find to inform. So when you do go into the analysis, you know, a few weeks after the research process, you at least have some foundation that's credible, that comes directly from the source of the material. And then from there, yeah, I mean, it really is all suburbation. objective. And if there is some way to like count what the most commonly used word on dissect is, aside from juxtaposition, it seems like it's in almost every sentence. It seems like blah, blah, blah, blah, or perhaps it's this. Like there's a lot of like subtle words that I hope make it feel like we're not trying to tell you exactly this is the answer. It's like, no, this is kind of like what it feels like.

like based on my thought process, based on the research, et cetera. So. Yeah. But it is. I think the conversation, sorry, the conversational aspect is something that I think about a lot. You're in conversation with the art. Right. It's going to give you as much as you give it. And that's always been my approach from day one.

It's like, you're in conversation with it. I definitely noticed maybe just because I was more aware of it, but this season especially, you, maybe this was, again, just because I was more aware of it, but that it seems or it could be interpreted that, I was noticing that a lot more. So it's certainly present. I would say there was extra caution taken with this season.

Yes, there was. For a lot of different reasons out of respect. And I'm happy about that, yeah. Yeah, out of, you just don't know. And when it comes to something like drug use or, knowing his past, like there was just a lot to consider that we wanted to be very as, as respectful as humanly possible. So that's why it probably felt like there was more. Awesome. I appreciate you both. The damn season put my mom onto Kendrick Lamar.

Oh, nice. I love that. I love that. I say all the time that we are professional thread pullers in the English profession. So I appreciate you guys pulling on all the threads for us. Cool. Thank you, Walt. Appreciate you guys. Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

All right. Taylor Davis, Taylor, what's up? How's it going? Hey, guys. Loved the season that dissect. Loved all the past seasons. Big fan. I think you guys have done a great job with this forum as well tonight.

Happy to be a part of it. My question was taken earlier, so I'll switch to, you seem seems like you're in the research portion of the next season when could we maybe expect the season to debut um so it's actually not going to be a full season i'm doing a mini series on something um essentially buying time till kendrick's next album yeah which is going to have that rolling loud apparently god uh really did you see this oh i i was wondering if you had seen this announcement before we got on air Oh no. He's headlining rolling loud and rolling loud's like, if Kendrick's headlining, you know what that means.

Yeah. What's the, what's the date? July. Okay. I can't remember there's another show that was overseas. There is the Italian one, right? Where he's saying it's from a news. Malano.

It sounds like a summer album, though. So if that's July, I would guess probably, yeah, summer. He seems to release around. those times every time. So cool. We know it's coming. Anyways, so the next season will be out in April. The next series will be out in April.

And I pretty much gave it away on social media a few times. If you have, if you have a discerning eyes, I pretty much gave it away like multiple times. It's going to be great. It's going to be different. It's a new one for dissect. I'll say that. All right.

Thank you. Appreciate you. All right. Well, thanks, everyone that's still here in the chat. We're going to sign off now, but really appreciate you guys sticking around. Thank you, Kim, for staying up almost, I think, what, midnight? It's almost midnight. Woo-hoo.

We're going to have like a five-hour sleep and then go teach. Woo! Let's go. Thank you for having me, Cole. This is great. Thank you to all the wonderful people here. This has been wonderful. Yeah, it's been really good.

And it obviously goes without saying thank you for your work this entire year. we're about to get back on the saddle with the next one together so I'm looking forward to it yeah yeah and Cole thank you and the people should know this I can't do this with Azure Cole I really appreciate all the help this year

this has been really great so thank you yeah likewise yeah my name is Joey and I'm from Minneapolis Minnesota these two albums for me embody the human experience and the constant changes that come with it I think that Max shows us the entire range of emotion and feelings that we do experience can be a beautiful thing and we can learn from our past patterns to better be present and enjoy the life and people that make up the right now.

Thank you, Cole and the entire Dyset crew for putting this together and giving this beautiful project the recognition of deserves. Hey guys, my name is Janet and I am from Seattle and I have loved this season's episodes on McNeillers swimming in circles. It's a concept that really resimated with me. And when swimming first debuted, I was going through the most difficult period of my life. And by the time that circles debuted, I felt like I was starting a new chapter that I had a bit of a rebirth. And so I actually got my first tattoo earlier this year swimming in circles to just remind me that everything begins again. Hi, Dissect. My name is Luke and I'm from Ireland.

Like Mack, I deal a lot with overthinking. But his music, especially swimming in circles, has truly allowed. me to slow down and be more thoughtful about the people and things around me. Mac is a lifeline to me and I'm thankful every day for him. So I couldn't think of a better way of honoring his legacy than seeing Dissect doing a deep dive into his two masterpieces. I like this season being over and losing Mac. I try to remember. Don't be sad that it's over.

Be happy that it happened. This is Chase from the neighborhood of Mount Washington overlooking the city of Pittsburgh. I'm the kind of kid who was lucky enough to grow up blasting Mac's early mixtapes in my mom's old SUV while cruising around with my high school friends. It was complete debauchery. As we grew older and more introspective, so did Mac's music.

I think that Mac initially gave us what we wanted so that he could eventually give us what we needed. And swimming in circles is exactly what I needed at this point in my life. Cole, thanks for helping me to realize that the Kool-Aid and frozen pizza was just the tip of the iceberg. Just one unimaginably small point on the complete circle.

Hey, I'm Levi from Litterark, Arkansas. and I just wanted to pay tribute to Mack and his work on swimming with the impact this had on my life. The swimming album is what made me a fan of Mac and it opened doors to the rest of his music and drew me into the world of Mackheads. His music brings comfort and a sense of freedom. Thank you for this season. It means a lot. Hey, I'm Jameson and I'm from Boston, and swimming in circles mean the world to me. Swimming came out during a point in my life where everything was falling apart around me. It showed me that other people had been through the same shit, and not only did they survive,

they found the little moments of beauty that make life worth living. And that this season of Dysect really helped me come full circle on that and realize how far I've come since then. So I just want to say thank you, Mack, and thank you Dysect for everything you've done. At the start of Swimming's Dysect, I definitely called myself a fan of Max's music. It sounded unlike anything lyrically I'd heard before. Throughout each episode, Cold Dives in with us and really explores the in-depth sound of every song. Each week brought such a potent new understanding of the lyrics and music that it could even revamp a song I'd previously overplayed. Personally, I'm really grateful for when Cole told us about sitting down and letting it happen.

It's been something that I've adopted and has really helped me deal with situations where I felt like I might have too much going on in my head. Anyways, thank you, Dysect for really opening my understanding about MacMiller's swimming in circles. My name is Timit. I'm from the Netherlands. And my biggest takeaway from these two albums was that to every end there is a beginning and everything will be all right. You just need to trust the process and, yeah, life finds a way. And just taking one step at a time sometimes is all you need. And when discovering these albums, those are just some messages I really needed to hear. And the struggle is part of the discovery of it all, I think.

Hi, my name is Cam from Chicago. At the end of 2020, I was listening to Circles and decided to write a little reflection on the year, using lyrics from the album as a guide. Reading that piece now, after listening to this season of Dysect, I realized I subconsciously understood and captured most of what Mack was trying to convey in creating swimming in circles. In the end, I think every Mac fan would agree. His music gives such an appreciation for life that you can feel it in your bones. So thank you guys. Hi, my name is Erica, and I'm from the Pittsburgh region of Pennsylvania. Swimming and Circles both means so much to me. Swimming is my favorite album of all time and has got me through my husband's severe illness

from approximately its release to when circles came out around the time of my husband's recovery. One song in particular strikes a vivid memory in my mind every time I hear it. Don't know. It was August of 2018, and my husband and I were road-tripping through the southwestern region of the United States. I remember pulling off the side of the road with that song playing observing the beautiful Perseid meteor shower. Hey Cole, it's Johnny from Chicago. I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed this season because it was great to see someone else who genuinely appreciates Max's art and his lyrics. Every analysis on both swimming and circles felt so spot on that I can tell how much effort you put into each episode.

I just wish he was still here. here to have listened to it. He would have definitely loved your podcast, man. Keep it up. Thank you. Hi. My name's Jorge from Minnesota. And my biggest takeaway from season nine was the don't know episode. The song in general meant a lot to me because it taught me about loving and caring about that special someone and learning that their own happiness means way more than the relationship between the both of you. Learning that it's okay to let go, but to forever cherish the memories you've made with them. My name is Chloe Killian, and I'm from Rock Island, Illinois.

My favorite song off of Circles is Surf because it's all about beauty and forgiveness and nature, and there's a sense of longing and loneliness that I think I really relate to. And I think the biggest lesson that you can learn from circles is to really just appreciate beauty and nature and to learn to forgive others and not take anything for granted. I'm Andrew from Pomona, California, and one thing I took away that was really, like, really, like, crazy to me in the season of Dysect was on the So It Goes episode, just the Clementine and the peeling off, all the references and all the, like, entendres, I guess, he makes were just really fascinating to me. And, yeah, I just want to say it was a great podcast. Thank you. Hi, my name's Naya, and I'm from North Carolina. So I found Dysect podcast this week, and it was the perfect timing.

MacMillers music has always meant so much to me. He's got me through basically everything, and this podcast helped me form a deeper love for him that I never thought I'd have. Hearing his music be talked about this way is simply beautiful. I really hope wherever he is now, he's at peace, and I hope he knows how much of an impact he left on this world. Thank you, Malcolm. This is Camden Ostrander from Aspen Hill, Maryland.

It has been a privilege to swim in circles with you all this season, so thank you for being here now. Thank you to my family, my partner and loved ones for their support on this intense journey. Thank you, Cole, for your support and collaboration. Thank you to those who supported Mac and made this possible. And thank you Mac for being honest. Finally, I'd like to pay a tribute of respect for two souls that were here for me. Andromeda, rest in peace.

And rest in peace, Dave Ostrander, and all those who take care of others more than themselves. So it goes. The name is Peyton and I'm from Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. My biggest takeaway from swimming in circles is the feeling Mac Miller gives you through his lyrics. He helps me overcome the feeling of loneliness and reminds me they are brighter days ahead. His song Surf has always calmed me down in times of stress and anger and for that I'm forever grateful for him and his music.

Love you, Mac. I'm Aiden from Salt Lake City, Utah. He started dissecting swimming during a time when I was already listening to a lot of Mac Miller. I was trying to learn to accept life for how it was, so the sentiment of it is what it is was really impactful on me. Mack's music always helps bring me back to Earth, and Circles is one of my favorite albums of all time. He's been a huge inspiration of my life and creative process.

So thanks for another great season, and rest and peace, Mac. Hi, I'm Jimmy, 30 years old, and I'm from Ain Tova to Netherlands. Swimming and Circles, they've been my rock these past years battling. depression, addiction, anxiety. Just knowing Mac went through the same thing, how he cope with it, it just made me stronger. I want to thank Cole and dissect him as well for making me grasp things I normally miss as a native Dutch speaker.

Just, yeah, thanks, and most dope. That's forever. Hi, Kyle, this is Nick from Australia. I heard of Mac Miller on and off throughout the years and unfortunately heard the song Ladders on the radio on the week of his passing, but I was hooked ever since. During that time, I was in a huge depressive and anxious spiral, and his music literally saved me, as I know it did many, many others. This podcast for the last month or two has only cemented the fact that Mac Miller was

and is a musical genius. I can only think of the music we would have received while he was in lockdown in COVID. Thanks, Dysak for the amazing podcast. Hey guys, Dave from Colonna BC here. I feel like one of the things I appreciate about these records most is that But Matt gave us a window into what his struggles were like. He didn't ask us to wallow. He just wanted us to listen and take what we could.

And grief for anybody who's lost friends to the same type of incident that Mac had, grief is like these albums. It's a circle. We're all going to have good days and bad days. And I feel like I've learned to appreciate the need to share the love when we have it and not get too low when we're in those trying periods. Hey, my name is Dan Felton from London, Ontario, Canada. And what Mac Miller's swimming in circles have meant to me over the past couple years is that, you know, being about the same age as Mac and growing up with his music, seeing how he grew as an artist and as a person is so clear to me on these albums.

The themes he touches on and the pieces of life that the songs talk about, I come back to both albums again and again to stay grounded and remind myself that people can grow and evolve. And even if it takes years and even if it's a job that's never truly done, Max's music always has that way of reminding you that everyone. Everything's going to be all right. So rest easy, Mac. We miss you. And thanks. Hi, my name is Nathan. I'm from Chicago.

My biggest takeaway from Magmiller's swimming in circles is that you get to learn so much about a person without knowing them. Every time I heard this podcast, it just clears a vision of understanding, learning, and experiencing. Each opportunity opens with growth in this project, including Mac to be by his music side for so long by his support. In a way, music is like a person. It has emotions, actions, and words building up altogether to create. Hi, Dysak, this is Corey from Chicago. The biggest takeaway for me from this season of swimming in circles has been the recurring theme of cycles of rebirth and renewal.

Even if we make mistakes, we can hopefully start again every new day with the goal of becoming better versions of ourselves. So I really love the phrase, now, is only now. Max music has meant so much to me in the past, especially the past two years. And I'm so thankful that you've made such a brilliant season. and introspection into Mac's work. Thank you. Hey, Cole, I'm Ben from Boston,

and I'm a big fan of the show. My biggest takeaway from swimming in circles is Mac's unmatched level of self-awareness at such a young age. Lyrics like, I'm way too young to be getting old, reminds me how short of a time span we all had to appreciate Max's legacy

while he was still on Earth. His discography evolved with each album, and I'm just glad to say that I was able to witness it, and luckily see him live. Rest in peace, Mac Miller, and most dope forever. Hi, my name's Andrew and I'm from New Jersey. And my biggest takeaway from this season was acceptance. Accepting everything that happens around you is probably something that I struggle most with.

And I think it's something like that's important to finding happiness. Just being okay with everything that happens around you and not asking why. Hey, Cole. My name is Zana and I'm from Indiana. I feel like Mac Miller has taught me so much about life through swimming in circles. One thing I learned to tell myself more often is don't trip, to not stress about life so much and accept the bad things that come with it. Another thing I learned is MacMiller's philosophy that life and emotions are circular. I realized that I won't always be happy and I won't always be sad,

and they have to fight through the bad times and enjoy the good ones. It's an acceptance that brings me clarity. I'm grateful for MacMiller putting these ideas into such a beautiful piece of music. Thank you, Cole, and everyone on Spotify, for creating my favorite season to dissect. Hey, this is Colin from Dallas. this season of dissect has just hit me at a real crucial time. I was experiencing a lot of my traumatic experiences, and I started going to therapy,

and, man, Max's ability to just write songs that can be in this really dark place, but in the next line, like a very bright place, like the song 2009 just carried me a lot this last year. So thanks for this season. Good job, Cole, good job, Cam. Looking forward to next season. My name is Alex.

I'm from New Jersey, And the biggest thing I took away from this season was how our lives are filled with constant circles and how the end of one thing at the beginning of another. The time period surrounding the release of circles is actually a perfect example of this for me because by January 2020, I really had settled my high school career. But less than two months later, COVID happened and I really had to change that. And it was cool to see how the beginning of the COVID high school career was the end of my normal high school career and how many other circles I hadn't even recognized that happened in my life. So thank you for that, Cole. My name's Ben and I'm from Sheffield in the UK. I think the biggest takeaway for me from Mac's albums and from Mac himself was the freedom that the art can give you.

It's clear to see from the albums and even more so hearing the dissections of them that Mac put everything into his art. Every single line, note, melody and sample was selected for a reason, but he makes it seem so effortless. It seems so free. Mac mentions a lot about dying for his art, finding something to love and letting you kill you. And I'm not saying that's what he did, but the connections are there. Through Max conception of swimming in circles, I've been able to come more content in my life with what goes on in my own head, and I've learned to live with it and turn it into my own heart. So, I'm Lionoff from Brooklyn, New York. Swimming and circles for me are brutally honest explorations of what it means to be human and all the ups and downs that come along with it. These albums have been with me during some of my hardest and best times and being more to me every time I listen to them.

Mac really channeled his life, struggles and hopes into this body of work, and for me at least, allows me to relate to him and his music in such a deep and powerful way. and I think a lot of fans feel that way. I just wanted to add a quick shout out to Cole and the whole crew that I sacked for making me be able to relay this album on a new level and providing really quality stuff for my commute every Tuesday morning. Love you all for that and can't wait for season 10. Hello, my name is Forrest Swanson and I'm from Fort Worth, Texas.

I think my biggest takeaway from season nine is that swimming really showed me that there's a balance to life, that there's a balance between the good and the bad. Like you can't experience the greatest highs without experience the lowest lows. Like, how do you appreciate the greatest highs or vice versa? And I think Mac Miller created a really an exceptional album. It's my favorite album of all time.

And thank you guys for doing this deep dive into it because I've learned so much. Hi, my name is Kai and I'm from Grand Junction, Colorado. I just recently turned 18, actually on Mac's birthday, which means that I didn't really get to grow up with Mac like a lot of people did. but his music really resonates with me at this point in my life, especially swimming in circles. So I was so excited to see that the Dysak podcast was doing a season on it, and it's really given me deeper insights on an album that I just love so much by my favorite artist, and I wanted to say thank you very much.

I'm Joey Jelmsted from North Dakota. Swimming in Circles has changed my life for the better. I started my music career. My stage name J. Mack is a direct tribute to Mac Miller. He really changed my life and gave me a new outlook on how to live my life. And I thank him every day for that. Rest in peace, MacMiller. Shout to the Dysect podcast.

Shout out Cole Kushner. Hi, my name is Magdalena and I'm from Norway. This season of Dysect introduced me to the wonderful world of MacMachia. music. I had listened to good news and self-care before, and listening to the analysis and thoughts by the lyrics, and the song is new again. My favorite moment of this season, funny enough, was bawling my eyes out by listening to heaven, and so it goes. So thanks to Cole, and of course, to the greatest of all time, first in peace. My name is Elena, and I'm from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Mack always reminds me to trust in who I am, above all else. His unwaived.

faith in his own humanity and his at times wavering compassion for himself is really infectious. His music doesn't just make me want to be more like him. It also makes me want to be more like myself. I'm Max. I'm from Central Pennsylvania. Season 9 of Dissect has really been great for me. My friend's brother has been battling addiction and it's been really hard on him. The breakdown of Max's lyrics has really depicted an image of how hard addiction really is. I really appreciate you bringing all of these thoughts that we would have never understood to our minds. Now the lyrics have more meaning than they seem. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Much love. Jesse from Manitoulin Island, Canada. To meet the cyclical nature of swimming in circles ties itself into a grander cycle throughout the journey of Max discography, where we're privileged to witness the unfiltered vulnerabilities of Max's mind as he searches for the antidote to suffering. Where a blue slide park represents the height of the mountain closest to heaven, faces illustrates the depths and delusions of hell as a consequence of his journey for answers.

But it's swimming in circles that truly brings us full circle to return to heaven as Mack discovers that the holy truth he's been looking for his whole life is love and acceptance. My name is Martin and I'm from Ecuador. Mac's music has changed the way I think and my way of looking at life with its ups and downs. This season of dissect helped me feel things I didn't feel and understand things I didn't feel and understand things I did. didn't understand. Thank you, Cole, and thank you Malcolm for everything you've done. Mosto, forever. What up? My name is Evo from Luxembourg Europe, and my takeaway from this season is that the album Swimming represents Malcolm, slowly breaking away from the cloud of darkness that surrounded

him all these years, and circles ends up representing his transition to the afterlife, as in he left all his suffering and sorrows down here on earth and is now resting in eternal peace. That's why circles sounds so somber but also calm at the same time. Anyway, thanks so much for another great season called Peace. My name is Hannah. I'm from Melbourne, Australia. The biggest thing that consolidated with me in this season of swimming in circles is the way Mac was able to put all of his emotions and thoughts into his music so beautifully,

especially with the use of his voices and instrument. Swimming is my favorite album of all time, and I'm so glad this season was able to shed some light on addiction and the times that you feel like you're drowning. I'm so grateful to have experienced Max's perception of it in these albums. My name is Lance. I'm from New Jersey, and I first discovered Max Music when my sister put good news on in the car. It was such a beautiful song,

and I've grown to love Max's music over the past two years. Even with all the chaos going on outside, swimming in circles was a project that made me feel safe and reassured. Max's ability to endure all of the hardships in his life, turned them around, and make an absolute masterpiece should be an inspiration to everyone. Thanks. Hey, I'm Caleb from Dallas. I remember the first couple of times I listened to Circles, and they were some of the most relaxed I had felt in the longest time.

In a crazy world that was about to get crazier in 2020, I listened to circles as I sat in the dentist chair about to get a tooth pulled out, and I didn't even feel a thing. I think that that speaks to the spiritual power that Mack's words have had and how such a sweet and beautiful message can shine a light in our dark times. Circles has gotten me through this pandemic for sure. Hi Cole, this is Lincoln from Atlanta. These two albums mean so much to me in a way that few will understand. I loved Mac so much growing up, but due to a church mission,

I was unable to listen to either of the albums and was devastated to hear of his passing. When I got the chance to listen to the two albums, it was at the beginning of the pandemic. These albums clearly felt connected and helped me to feel as though it was okay to experience difficult emotions and it's okay to rely on others at times.

Thank you so much for dissecting these two albums. It really meant a lot to me. Hey Cole, this is Truman from Boulder, Colorado. For me, swimming has always represented the beauty in the struggle. There's a constant back-and-forth mental struggle thinking, what's the use in trying, but also keeping afloat and soaring in other moments,

and the struggle makes those good moments feel more meaningful. Mack has helped me and so many others realize that even if you are swimming in circles, you are still attempting to make progress and there will be another chapter. Because after all, you have to jump in to swim. Thanks Cole for a fantastic season. Most importantly, rest easy, Mac. Savannah Ashby, Wheeling West Virginia, thanks I SAC for bringing Mack back to Earth in a small but significant way.

Swimming in circles has always reminds me that I'm not the only one drowning. there's other people going through it too. And thanks Malcolm. We love you. Most dope. That's forever. I'm Reese from Nashville, Tennessee. Honestly, I used to think swimming in circles was overrated. But over the run of this season, it became my favorite work of all time. My biggest takeaway from this season has been the quote it always seems to come back to.

Don't create all of this weight for things. I think it's so much weight, but it's all just chapters. I've always built everything up in my mind and it paralyzes me. But the reality is we're all just. just swimming, and we have to keep going. And even if I keep swimming in circles, I learn something new every time I go around. So let's keep swimming and appreciating the little things every single day.

Thanks, Cole. Hey, Cole. This is Shelby from Saratoga Springs, New York. Every season you make me think about music differently, this season, my takeaway is that when I listen to music, I love, I think about how much that person put into it. and I don't think I can ever conceptualize how much they put into it until I make art myself. Artists are the most generous gift givers and Mac especially put everything into his art.

Thanks for sharing. Hi, my name is Olivia and I'm from Kansas City, Missouri. The year is 2022. I've officially been in awe of Mac Miller for 10 years and have a feeling I will continue to be for many years to come. The more I listen to his music, the more I feel both connected and inspired. What I've come to appreciate most about swimming in circles is what feels like permission to experience the full range of our emotions, to be able to flow with the waves of our lives. My deepest gratitude to Mac Miller and Kolkishna for dissecting two of my favorite albums.

Hi, I'm Alex and I'm from China. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but yeah, as one of his Chinese fans, I think Circles is especially good news, has helped me get through one of the toughest times in my 20s. From it could always be worse to then I'll find to discover that it ain't that bad. When stuck in circles, you will eventually get a powerful epiphany that life just goes on no matter what, and you've got to clean up the mess and leave your life to the fullest. That's what Max album means to me personally, and I'll always be grateful for having gone through that with the song. Hello, my name is Marie from Cleveland, Ohio. I would say that one of my biggest take-evaluerre

biggest takeaways from swimming in circles is the idea of swimming in circles itself. I remember when both swimming and circles dropped and I actually googled what swimming and circles meant and it means that life always repeats. So how I look at it, life may always repeat itself, but you have the chances to make and fix your mistakes. Mac Miller is one of the few artists that can put indescribable feelings into words and turn it into beautiful music. My name is Zoe and I'm from Los Angeles. I was so stoked to see swimming in circles were the albums that were going to be covered this season and dissect. I loved swimming when it was first released, and Circles is the most important album in my life. It was released a month

after my dad had passed away, and it really was the album that helped get me through that period of my life. And I just want to say thank you to Cam and Cole for breaking down all the production and the background stories behind all the songs. All right, bye, thank you. Hey, I'm Robert from Ireland. Both swimming and circles have meant a lot. to me ever since the first few listens. I find the feelings and emotions that Matt goes through during the albums is so relatable. My favorite song off of the two albums is definitely perfect though. I completely understand the feeling of keeping up appearances and just holding your breath under hard circumstances.

Learning to see the beauty of life's imperfections is something that's changed the way I see the world completely and I'm ever grateful to have heard these albums when I did. Thank you. Hi my name's Elijah. I'm from Carney, Nebraska and I just want to say thank you dissect and thank you mac for showing me how beautiful the world could be i wrote you a poem feeling like the new kid on the block swimming now don't need your shore waves of time wash away the clock miss the morning suddenlys me wanting more watching movies i hear a knock she stands there divine in the frame of the door taking my hand we begin to walk telling me it's okay we circle the block Savannah, Ireland. Listening to season nine has transported me straight back and allowed me to

relive all the emotions I felt when swimming and circles came out. All in all, Mac Miller has helped me feel less lonely in this world. At the time of its release, I was struggling with how cold the world can be. But Mac made me feel less afraid and reminded me I wasn't the only person feeling this way. I was so saddened by his death, but swimming and circled has helped his talent live on. Thank you so much, Cole, for helping me understand it more deeply. Tyler 32, Stockton, California. There's one thing I can take from this season is Max honesty, the good and the bad, the happiness and pain,

and how he channeled it so effectively. And he's helped me to look further inward at myself and my own mortality, to not shy away from it, reminding me to not be afraid of vocalizing how it may be feeling, reminding me that music is a beautiful thing, and that if you just be you, you'll be fine. Hey, Cole, KM, and Dysect listeners. This is Tyler from Minneapolis.

Swimming in circles has always been a favorite of mine because of how raw and real, both the production and lyricism on the project are, and the entire thing has only become exponentially more emotional for me since Max's passing. This season deepened my love for the project by giving even more those aha moments that I found so rewarding when I first listened,

and I'll never be able to put into words how much I appreciate that. Thank you guys for another outstanding season, and I'll see you in the next life. Yo, my name is Chris Shady. Swimming in circles, the literal soundtrack to my life. It allowed me to transform from an incomplete boy to a man that wants to do better. If it wasn't for swimming, I wouldn't be doing music in general, so, Mac, I'm forever in your debt. Those albums to me mean not longing for happiness because that is a fleeting emotion,

but to search for peace in oneself. Mack, I look forward to having a conversation with you on the other side eventually. Thank you. Much love. Hi, I'm Kayla from Portland, Oregon. My biggest takeaway from dissect swimming in circles is test your drugs, don't use alone, and carry naloxone. What happened to MAC is happening all around the country. It's unfair.

We might think we're taking one thing, and we aren't. We're all just flowers trying to grow. Please be safe. This is Drusilla from Houston, Texas, sending out a big thank you to Mac for being so authentic. your witness of the human experience and providing a whole hue of different soundtracks for a collective of people to be able to relate to and apply it to our own varying journeys on this crazy, beautiful planet. My favorite projects are the divine feminine swimming and faces,

even though they're all very special to me. Thank you, Cole, for the podcast. I definitely cry every episode, every season. I love you all. Keep swimming. My name is Greg Johnston. I live in Los Angeles, and this season of Dissect, really what stood out to me is 2009. This is one of my favorite albums of all time, but that song specifically has always had a special place and special power to move me to my core. And I'm just so grateful that you emphasized how sonically pleasing yet powerful that song is, and the power it holds, especially now that Mac is gone. RIP Mac. Hi Cole, I'm Theo and I'm from La Come, Alberta.

I'm in my 20s and I'm a year into my career. This past year has been really hard for me emotionally, mainly because my day, my week, and my life feels like a circle. Your analysis of Mac swimming in circles makes me look inward and my own experiences. Because of your podcast, I don't just enjoy Mac's music. I learn lessons from it, like the importance of being here now. Thanks for everything you in that.

sec team do i love the show hi cole my name is dalton and i'm from buffalo minnesota swimming in circles helped me get through some of the hardest times of my life around the time circles was released my relationship was crumbling and i was in a dark place but max words and music shined a light into the darkness and helped me find my way through my biggest takeaway from swimming in circles is that no matter the struggle and demons we face in our lives we have the ability to overcome and make something beautiful out of our hard times. Thank you for the hours of entertainments that gets me through my workday, and I can't wait for the next season. Hey, I'm Griffin from Madison, Wisconsin, and what I love most about Mac Miller, besides any inability to make others around him feel happy

and excited was his musical genius. You know, whatever emotion you're feeling, there's literally a Mac Miller album for that, and that's truly incredible, like considering how young it was. More specifically, you know, swimming circles, Mac said himself, his most vulnerable state, was singing and yet he does that like the entire time on both those albums and like he didn't care what others thought he just did him and people loved him for that thank rest of peace mac miller hi my name is ryan and i'm from wisconsin um swimming in circles biggest impact on me uh as a fan of his for his entire career was swimming was the reason or at least a big reason why i stopped using opiates as a 10-year opiate addict.

And circles help me continue my sobriety to the point of where I'm at three and a half years sober. So thank you, Mack, love you. Hi, dissect. My name is Mutuzi from Zambia, and I wanted to let you know that my biggest takeaway from Mac Miller's swimming and circles has been the idea that you keep on going.

There'll be good times, there'll be bad times, but you don't give up. You don't stop. You keep on swimming. You don't stop. So, yeah, thank you, Mac, and thank you for this amazing season. This is Tyler from Daytona Beach, Florida.

Taking your time here now is the most important thing. Don't read into the moment. Too many days passed by where I, we question our meaning and purpose here on Earth. Actions must continue to follow these intrusive thoughts. Max's life and constant persistence is my biggest takeaway from this immaculate body of work. We don't need nothing but today.

Now is only now. Love you and miss you, Mac. Thank you for everything, Cole. Hello, my name is Ian. I live in Boise, Idaho. And swimming in circles to me is the soundtrack to deep introspection and change within oneself.

And I think that was the gift Malcolm wanted to give us. I only wish I could shake his hand and say thank you for sacrificing. sing so much of yourself and giving all of us a little piece of you to carry with us through our changes and ebbs and flows in this world because it means the world to everyone. Hey, Cole and Cam, this is Brooks from Baltimore. My biggest takeaway from season nine is how much I can take the music-making process for granted. The in-depth accounts of Max Herculane efforts in the studio,

pouring over music for months and months at a time, give me a greater appreciation of what artists go through to give us that song that we just turn around and post on our Instagram story. And that's not to mention all the life that artists experienced in the first place to make their music as meaningful as it is. As Mack said in this Prince Twitter thread, The motherfucker just gives their lives from music. Now I have a much better perspective on how to appreciate just what Mack meant. Colin Kame, thank you for an incredible season.

Can't wait to hear what's next. I'm from Texas, and Mac Miller shaped my life. Swimming and circles have always been there to pull me out of the depths that threatened to drown me. They helped me find the beauty and surviving, and they gave me the space to hold all the different versions of me together. the hopeful and the hopeless in every emotion in between. Because to me, circles isn't about the hopelessness of never changing. It's about the hope that even at your lowest, even when it feels like the end,

you can just take a breath and start again. Thank you for everything, Mac. Hi, I'm Zab, I'm from Houston, Texas. My biggest takeaway from the season of this act was just how talented of a writer, Mac really was. 2009 is one of my favorite songs of all time, and I feel almost stupid. the way I overlooked the brilliance of what Mack was doing on that song. Specifically with the line, I was yay high and muddy when you broke that down. My jaw, absolutely job. Mac really was so talented. Thank you, Cole, for another great season, and thank you, Mac Miller. 92 till

infinity, swimming in circles forever. Hi, I'm Leslie, and I'm from Boston, Massachusetts, and to me, Swimming in Circles is Mack's extraordinary description of the ebb and flows of the human experience. These albums have taught me that vulnerability doesn't have to be scary. It can be a beautiful thing. To be able to share with those you hold close or even a passing stranger. And with each episode of Dysect, I learn different aspects to the album, adding to the listening experience that is swimming in circles.

My name is Sam and I'm from Canberra, Australia. Already being my favourite album of all time, I went into the series with a sense of familiarity, one that was flipped straight in its head right away. The season added yet another layer of meaning to my understanding of Max's art form, and the gorgeous writing paired with Cole's narration made the podcast far and away my easiest listener of the year, not to mention the most eye-opening. Thank you to the entire production team for giving me a whole different perspective of what it truly means to be swimming in circles. Hey, Cole, A-Cam, this is Zach Cepeda from Dayton, Ohio. Congrats on another amazing season with Swimming in Circles.

Cole, I'm happy to hear that your favorite track was Wings. I think this is really the cornerstone of both projects and probably one of the best episodes you've done to date. To me, it's just a testament of how vividly Mack was able to portray an emotional state on record. We're all talent and brutal honesty all around. I absolutely love that song. Keep fighting the good fight in the music world to you both. Y'all are really helping thousands cut through the noise and talk about what I think is actually imminent and important. Really excited to hear what's next and peace.

Hey, Dessect. My name is Harry and I'm from Sydney, Australia. I'm 15 years old. I was introduced to your podcast by Michael. cousin Nish and as a raging Macmillifer and I was delighted when I learned of the theme for season nine. The breakdown of how Matt creates the water sounds and the themes were incredible. The metaphors he used as a constant motif like driving or being dirty. I've had my own battles with mental health and Malcolm was always there for me. I never really knew why his music

was so comforting in particular, but hearing the inner layers of what makes it so incredible was really helpful. Thanks guys. Go for Kate from Boise, Idaho. My biggest takeaways from this season of Dysect are the So It Goes Circles Revelation, which inspired a tattoo. I also really enjoyed getting to know more about Mack's intentions for Circles and the interview with Barrow. I have a new appreciation for the album that I would have missed without the podcast. Finally, the bonus episodes with Donna Claire and faces were helpful in my understanding of the rest of the world Mac built up. Most dope. Hi, my name is Danny Hernandez, and I'm from.

New York City. Lockdown allowed me to explore Max discography and experience his beautiful evolution as an artist, from discovering the beautiful yet lost imagery on the track Woods to the interconnectedness of both albums on the track So It Goes, when Max says so it goes in a way that sounds like circles. I thank Dissect for helping me with the finer details of this album and further appreciate this beautiful farewell to Mac Miller. Thank you. Hey, dissect team, this is Cam from Heartland, Michigan. My biggest takeaway from this season is simply the brilliance that was Mack Miller. Listening to this season, I get emotional thinking about how much more Mac had to give to this world,

but I always say thankful for the art he did provide us with. Max growth as an artist has always been an inspiration to me, and you capture that growth so well in this season. The message from these albums that has resonated with me the most is Max's focus on being present and focusing on making the best of right now. As always, thank you for taking the time to honor such great music. Hey, my name is Seth from Austin, Texas, and one of my biggest takeaways from season nine of Dysect is culminated in perfecto. Mac doesn't tell us exactly what is not perfect, but by the end of the song, we can infer that substances.

And that goes back to his interviews when he says that he puts his expression, he puts his feelings out in his music. But those that are actually listening and that actually care about him will catch up on that, while people who are just listening to his music at face value won't really... Hi, my name is Leah from Colorado. I feel a deep relatability to Mac and especially his last few albums. He's gotten me through the last few years. And I really love the quote that you talk about in the podcast. We exist through the ideas we give to the world. He's definitely given some incredible insights. And at the end of our life, that's really all we can hope for. So thank you, Mack, for existing. Hi, my name is Keone from California. I've been staring at my notebook for a couple hours trying to figure out exactly put into words. What swimming in circles this season is meant, but I think the best I can do is just to thank you Cole and thank Mack.

Just for another really solid season to dissect in general. It's been really consistent in my life. This podcast and music is something that I struggle with a lot to understand how much it means to me, but every little bit helps, Mac helps and you help too, so thank you. Hi, I'm Natalie and I'm from Massachusetts. Swimming in Circles have been pivotal albums for me as I navigate post-grad life. It's easy for me to get caught up in the feeling that I have to have everything figured out, but Mac reminds me that this is just a chapter. There's going to be a next part. To me, his music is a reminder that the best thing I can do is have trust in who I am and be here now.

So thank you, Cole and Cam for dissecting one of my favorite artists and albums, And thank you to my friends, Connor and Zach, for introduce me to this podcast and always putting me on to new music. You guys are the best. Hey, my name's Ethan, and I'm from Pittsburgh. Growing up in Mack's hometown, I had a very unique relationship with Max Music. It was a huge motivator for challenging parts of my life and often reflected some of my most successful and favorite periods of my life as well. I think swimming specifically is my favorite album because it's so emotional, it's so raw, so real and I don't think any artist can ever replicate the same feeling I get when I listen to that album.

Hi, I'm Amanda in Brooklyn, New York City. These albums mean the absolute world to me. They kind of saved my life and pulled me out of a lot of really dark times, but also the soundtrack to some of the best moments of my life. I wouldn't be here today without these albums to be honest, and I'm so grateful to get to experience Max's work of art in these albums every day. This even helped give me a lot more meaning and got to see a different perspective of what these albums could mean and made it extra special to me. Thank you, Disact, Cole, and most of all, Mac Miller. 92 till Infinity. Hey, this is John from Cleveland, and there's a million things I've learned to love about Mac this season. But at this moment, I'm thinking of the line, good news is all they want to hear. No, they don't like it when you're down.

And I think about how often Mac put a smile on his face and and lifted everybody else up in the room when he was probably going through some turmoil in his head. And it's made me feel more comfortable about reaching out to friends and support systems for help. Thank you, Cole. Thanks, Cam. Rawley, Sanana, swimming in circles to me is finding peace. Sonically, the various sounds of swimming equates to the different struggles one faces and circles with its more consistent sounds equates to the feeling of peace, reached from experiencing those struggles.

It is a reminder that as many times as we're faced with something difficult, we will find peace just as many times as well. It's easy to get caught up in the struggles, but it's important to just keep swimming. Hi, I co-owner dissect team. My name is Levi Perez, and I'm from Salt Lake City, Utah. My biggest takeaway from swimming in circles this season is that even the most beautiful things in the world have the potential to hurt us,

like roses and wings, but also life, which is full of good times, hardship, like heartbreak, addiction, and other personal problems, which is what makes Mack swimming. All of this is true, reaching the end of swimming, Mac finds acceptance in his problems, which is what makes circles, the state in life, but we all accept the good, but also bad, and rise once a day.