About Good News

Hearing Mac Miller wrestle with dark thoughts from beyond the grave can be a gut-punch. It can be also beautiful. That’s the balance the late rapper finds on “Good News,” the first single from Miller’s new posthumous album, Circles. Over a gently chugging groove liberally sprinkled with pizzicato strings, Miller, who died in 2018 of an accidental overdose, unspools his internal monologue in an impossibly weary, just-woke-up-but-kind-of-wish-I-hadn’t drawl. Co-produced by Miller and Jon Brion (and featuring both Wendy Melvoin of Prince’s backing band, the Revolution, and veteran rock drummer Matt Chamberlain), the music is melodic and subtly comforting, more sweet than bitter; in its woozy introspection, “Good News” recalls “Balcony Beach,” the 1997 slo-mo classic from the Bay Area duo Latyrx. Malcolm James McCormick (January 19, 1992 – September 7, 2018), known professionally as Mac Miller, was an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Miller began his career in the city's hip hop scene in 2007, at the age of fifteen. In 2010, he signed a record deal with Pittsburgh-based independent label Rostrum Records, with whom he had his breakthrough with the mixtapes K.I.D.S. (2010) and Best Day Ever (2011).