Greg is a Senior Staff Writer at Screen Rant. He majored in Film Production at Chapman University and worked in Development at ABC Television.
Following the official release of 2025's Balloonerism, Mac Miller's discography ranking has taken a new form. To call Mac Miller a rapper feels like a reduction that doesn't encapsulate his full range of talents.
Mac was a multi-musician, a producer, and a singer of several genres outside of hip-hop and hip-hop subgenres . Balloonerism officially hit Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube on January 17, 2025, two days before Mac's 33rd birthday. It arrived with accompanying vinyl releases, merchandise, visualizers, and a 24-minute animated companion film directed by Samuel Jerome Mason, currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video. This ranking doesn't include Mac's four pre-K.I.D.S. mixtapes: But My Mackin' Ain't Easy , How High , The Jukebox: Prelude to Class Clown , and The High Life . It also doesn't include his alter-ego side projects as Larry Fisherman, such as Run-On Sentences Vol. 1 & 2 , Stolen Youth with Vince Staples , or the self-titled 2013 Delusional Thomas album. His two released EPs, On and On and Beyond and You are also not included, nor are his two live albums Live from Space and Spotify Singles or any of Mac Miller's many unreleased projects. 12 I Love Life, Thank You 2011 While not considered one of Mac Miller's main albums, I Love Life, Thank You is his sixth official mixtape and is available to stream on Apple Music and Spotify. Arguably one of Mac's most bar-heavy projects, I Love Life, Thank You captures a similar youthful lightning-in-a-bottle energy to 2010's instant class K.I.D.S. and serves mainly as a companion and extension to this early era of Mac's career. The project sparked Miller's"Road 2 a Million Fans" series in 2011 when he released a new song for every 100,000 new Twitter followers. Considering the evolution that Mac would spark in his discography in just a few years after the release of I Love Life, Thank You, it remains an important timepiece of his development before the release of his first studio album, Blue Slide Park. Standout tracks include"Pranks 4 Players" featuring Sir Michael Rocks, who would later appear on Macadelic and Faces, "Love Lost" featuring a sample from The Temper Trap,"Family First" featuring Talib Kweli, and the bright instrumentation of"The Scoop on Heaven." 11 Best Day Ever 2011 Mac Miller's fifth mixtape Best Day Ever is worth mentioning alone for his hit"Donald Trump" track, which has accumulated 216 million views on YouTube. Also emerging from the aftermath of Mac's K.I.D.S. era, Best Day Ever also features an early feature from fellow Pittsburgh native Wiz Khalifa on"Keep Floatin'". Some would argue that Best Day Ever is a prime example of Mac's"frat boy" era that fit in well with other mainstream party-centric hip-hop music of the era. 2011 was a transformative and elevating year for Mac Miller, and Best Day Ever played an integral role in making that happen. He and Kendrick Lamar were selected for XXL's 2011 Freshman class along with the likes of Yelawolf, YG, Lil B, Big K.R.I.T., and Meek Mill. Apart from"Donald Trump", some Best Day Ever standouts include the funk bass-heavy"Wear My Hat", the rager anthem"All Around the World", and the melodic and iconic"BDE Bonus". 10 Blue Slide Park 2011 Speaking of 2011, Mac Miller released his debut studio album Blue Slide Park near the end of this pivotal year. The most"frat boy" studio offering from Mac, Blue Slide Park had several big hits, the biggest of which was the heavy-hitting"Smile Back". Singles"Frick Park Market" and"Party On Fifth Ave" also emerged as some of the most popular party tracks off of Blue Slide Park. Several more laid-back and atmospheric songs such as "Of The Soul" and"Missed Calls" rounded out the album while flexing Mac's range. Even some of the deeper cuts like"Under the Weather" and"Up All Night" have crystallized as definitive tracks of the early 2010s era of hip-hop. 9 K.I.D.S. 2010 K.I.D.S. was Mac Miller's first masterful project. While sonically similar to his aforementioned 2011 projects, K.I.D.S. tapped a central nerve that is still felt today by millions as pure nostalgia. Compared to his later works, K.I.D.S. naturally lacks the emotional maturity that would elevate Mac's music to such great heights in the coming years. K.I.D.S. still has a high replay value but doesn't always fit into a modern landscape, acting more like the shiniest trophy in your childhood bedroom. Mac was only 18 years old when K.I.D.S. dropped, making it even more remarkable. Songs like"Outside","Ride Around", and"Kool Aid & Frozen Pizza" allow listeners to reminisce on their own fading adolescent memories. Standouts such as"Nikes on My Feet" – which introduced Mac to millions –"Senior Skip Day" and"The Spins" sound just like high school and college for many. Fan favorite"Traffic in the Sky" wasn't cleared for the streaming release on official vinyl but remains another beloved classic off K.I.D.S. 8 The Divine Feminine 2016 Ranking the latter entries of Mac's discography feels like splitting hairs that are more determined by mood than quality. Regardless, The Divine Feminine is one of Mac's most engaging and energetic albums, featuring R&B and even gospel elements and providing another side of the wide-ranging artist. Released just one month after Mac and Ariana Grande – who is featured on"My Favorite Part" – started dating, The Divine Feminine also featured Mac's second collab with Kendrick Lamar after Macadelic's"Fight the Feeling". Album highlights include"Planet God Damn","Dang! ", and"Cinderella ". It also has two of Mac's longest tracks. 7 Macadelic 2012 Mac Miller's 2012 mixtape Macadelic is his first real concept album and an initial venture into his iconic psychedelic soundscapes. Potentially the most divisive of all Mac's main projects, Macadelic carries a similar nostalgic vibe as K.I.D.S. and represents the peak of his early music career, bridging the gap between Blue Slide Park and Watching Movies. While the party anthem"Loud" and the contemplative"Thoughts from a Balcony" are the most recognized songs of the project, trippy deep cuts such as"Vitamins","1 Threw 8", and"The Mourning After" are the backbone of the mixtape. Kendrick Lamar features on the hypnotic"Fight the Feeling", Lil Wayne features on the 6-minute"The Question", and"America" features notable early verses from Odd Future's Casey Veggies and Beast Coast's Joey Bada$$. The spacey and sentimental"Clarity" is nearly a precursor to"Objects in the Mirror", again painting a lyrical portrait of a woman to express his relationship with drugs and addiction. 6 GO:OD AM 2015 2015's GO:OD AM is Mac Miller's most commercial album and arguably the purest hip-hop project in his discography. Mac's third studio album and first with major label Warner Bros., GO:OD AM is very polished and well-executed, made with the eyes and pressure of studio executives, as opposed to the"dark side of his bizarre mind" like Mac's other projects. Mac doesn't get fancy with GO:OD AM and instead focuses intently on spitting bars. Standouts like"Brand Name","100 Grandkids","Weekend", and"Clubhouse" showcase Mac's mainstream appeal, while"Perfect Circle / God Speed" offers an intriguing change of pace 5 Circles 2020 Mac Miller's first posthumous release Circles offered fans the first glimpse of the artist's unreleased works. Intended to be a companion album to 2018's Swimming, Miller was working on Circles right before his death on September 7, 2018. Musician and film composer Jon Brion, who made the score for one of Mac's favorite movies Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, completed production on the project. "Good News" was the first single released in January 2020 just one week before the album dropped. Circles isn't so much a rap album as it is an alternative/soft rock and R&B album. Electronic duo Disclosure helped produce"Blue World" while other standouts include"Woods" and"Surf". There's a sense of calm sobriety and hope throughout the album, with lyrics that are not only full of wisdom but acceptance, defined by honest and soulful reflection. 4 Balloonerism 2025 Balloonerism is the seventh studio album by Mac Miller and the second posthumous LP. It was released by his estate and Warner Bros released on January 17, 2025, two days before Mac's 33rd birthday. Often considered Mac's"lost tape", Balloonerism originated in a 2-week jam session in 2014 between Watching Movies with the Sound Off and Faces. While a leaked version of the album has been circulating around the internet since 2020, many fans have only experienced Balloonerism for a short time. "Funny Papers" is a clear standout and one of Mac's most beautiful songs. The overall lyricism and storytelling on Balloonerism is fantastic, as is the immersive production that very much sounds like the Mac era it emerged from. Larry Fisherman creates the most bewildering and immersive soundscape on the entire album with"DJ's Chord Organ" featuring SZA, while the variety of production elements in"Do You Have a Destination?" make it mesmerizing. Other standouts include the transcendental"Rick's Piano", the eerie ambient brilliance of"Tomorrow Will Never Know" and the fan-favorite"Stoned". 3 Watching Movies with the Sound Off 2013 While Macadelic hinted at the psychedelic themes to come as Mac's evolution progressed, 2013's Watching Movies with the Sound Off is often considered the biggest musical pivot in his career. Macadelic still had the"frat boy" echoes of K.I.D.S. era Mac but Watching Movies was something different, a true artistic vision and expression. Inspired by the PBS nature documentary Birds of the Gods, Watching Movies carries many bird sounds and themes, as evidenced by track 2's title"Avian". Standout tracks include the hazy and ominous"I'm Not Real" featuring Earl Sweatshirt, which feels like a sister song of Mac's feature on Earl's 2013 debut album Doris titled"Guild", and the haunting banger"Watching Movies." Ab-Soul features on the catchy"Matches", Action Bronson features on the hard-hitting"Red Dot Music", and the elusive Jay Electronica drops a surprise feature on head-spinning"Suplexes Inside of Complexes and Duplexes". The highlight of Watching Movies is the apparent love song"Objects in the Mirror", which Mac revealed to be written about his addictions, not a woman. 2 Swimming 2018 2018's Swimming feels like an accumulation of all the highlights in Mac's previous works. The underlying psychedelia that runs through Balloonerism and Faces is met with the polished refinement and crisp production of his first Warner Bros. albums, GO:OD AM and The Divine Feminine. Releasing just a little more than a month before Mac's untimely death, the second single"Self Care", arguably the most replayable song on the album, was given an earth-shattering sense of eerieness and gravity. Outside the real-world context of Swimming, the album as it stands truly has zero skips. From the deeply courageous and vulnerable opening lyrics of"Come Back to Earth" and the groovy yet reluctant vibes of"Hurt Feelings" and"What's the Use?" to the blissfully confused strokes in"Perfecto" and the stripped-down soul-bearing confessions of"Wings", Swimming is Mac's most accessible masterpiece. Stunningly, the back half of Swimming is even more moving and mesmerizing, ending with an incredible 3-track run of"Jet Fuel","2009", and"So It Goes", all 5 minutes plus. 1 Faces 2014 While technically still a mixtape despite a 2021 official release from Mac Miller's estate, Faces is a trip-hop masterpiece and arguably Mac's magnum opus. It is a staple of its subgenre, offering a deeply imaginative and beautiful strange soundscape that also just happens to possess some of the best production and lyrical work in Mac's discography. While Mac's struggles with drugs and addiction are at the heart of the project, the result is one of the most significant modern psychedelic rap albums ever conceived. Crafted with movie samples and now-legendary features, Faces feels like a near-delusional stroke of confidence and calm in the eye of a hurricane. It's contradictory, unsure of itself, and yet liberating in its design, existing tonally somewhere in between carefree and careless. The transfixing"Colors and Shapes" is remarkably otherworldly. Mac trades bars with prime Earl Sweatshirt on two separate tracks,"Polo Jeans" and"New Faces v2", and goes in with Vince Staples on"Rain" and ScHoolboy Q on"Friends." All this, and the mid-project track"Diablo" is the most popular song. Faces is so good it should be academically studied and preserved, making it the best Mac Miller album.
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