The legendary mixtape and one of my favourite projects of all time arrived to streaming services on Oct. 15, seven years after its initial release
By: Isaac Fontes
When I was just a 14-year-old, Mac Miller released Faces. It became available for free download on May 11, 2014, and served as the follow-up to his second studio album, 2013’s Watching Movies With the Sound Off.
Mac always has and always will be one of my favourite artists of all time. He has always spoken to me through his music and even his interviews because of his genuine personality, his quirky sense of humour and his raw ability to express himself and his thoughts, no matter how candid, through his bars and rhymes. In a way, I grew up alongside Mac and his music, closely following each phase of his incredible career — listening to everything he put out, under every alias, with a passionate ear.
Each project of his was released at a different, important time in my developing years. Faces came at a time in my life when I was just a confused, pimply-faced teenager who was still figuring out my identity. One thing that I’ve always been sure of though, is my love for music. Faces helped to solidify that, and it quickly became one of the first musical projects that I can remember being obsessed with from front-to-back.
Since a young age, I would carefully spend the iTunes gift cards that I asked for on every holiday and birthday on songs that sounded interesting and that spoke to me in ways that I couldn’t even properly describe at the time. Growing up as a fan of hip hop, Datpiff, the site where I downloaded Faces from, was one of my favourite sites to visit on my parents’ laptop. I would sometimes spend hours just browsing the site for new mixtapes to download for free, import them to my iTunes library, and sync them to my iPod. It was like being at an art gallery, scrolling through all of these art pieces and being able to pick whichever ones I wanted to listen to and proudly own in my library. Faces was, and still is, the art piece that means the most to me, and although I was able to download it for free, it became invaluable to me.
Clearing as many samples as they could, Mac’s estate finally released the legendary mixtape to streaming services on my birthday this year, Oct. 15. It was an incredible coincidence and made for one of the best birthday gifts I could have ever asked for. After all this time, for it to hit streaming services on my birthday, was just so wild; an honour, even. It felt like a message. Since I’ve always had it in my library thanks to good ol’ iTunes and local files on Spotify, it being made available on streaming services doesn’t directly benefit me, but the fact that it was done on my birthday made me feel as though it was specifically for me.
On top of this, I’m now the proud owner of a Faces vinyl, which shipped out on my birthday as well. Being able to now own it in my physical music library was a full-circle moment, and something that I’ll always be grateful for. It made me happy that Faces would now get the opportunity to be more widely listened to by music fans all over the world. That’s what a project like this deserves, even if it’s seven years after its release. While I loved it being a cult classic among his fans and hip-hop fans in general over the past seven years, nothing makes me happier than knowing it’s now reaching a broader audience. I will still hold it close to my heart.
For fans like me, who have had Faces in our rotation for years, its release on streaming services reignited discourse surrounding its greatness. It was a reminder that Mac’s music and talents will live on forever. No project of his demonstrates this better than Faces. The tape begins with “Inside Outside,” and Mac addressing the intensity of his drug addiction in the opening lines; “I shoulda died already / Came in, I was high already / Everybody trippin’ that my mind ain’t steady / For my sin, shoulda been crucified already.”
These themes of addiction, mental health and death followed Mac throughout his career, and he addresses his demons head-on in the best way he ever could throughout Faces’ 24-song runtime; through his music. No matter what Mac was going through during the Faces era, he found a way to cope. He put it all in the music — everything. His deepest thoughts (“My grandma probably slap me for the drugs I got / I’m a crackhead but I bought her diamonds, we love rocks”) and most candidly honest confessions (“Who got the ecstasy pills? I need a few to roll / I’m a real drug addict homie, you should know.”) As listeners, we get welcomed into Mac’s mind; he uses the mic as his therapist and we get to be a fly on the wall in their intimate session.
At the time of its release, I wasn’t yet aware of my own mental health. Over the years, as I matured and experienced more in life, the songs began to speak to me more, gaining relatability. The meaning behind some of his bars became clearer. Faces has never left my rotation and for these reasons, it never will. Even though I’ve heard it a hundred times, it never fails to amaze me with every listen. It’s one of my comfort albums, something that I find myself throwing on whenever I need to feel at ease. This is why music is such a beautiful thing and why I will always hold Faces so close to my heart, regardless of its availability. In 2017, Mac tweeted that he “wasn’t even on planet Earth” when creating Faces, and while that will always make me feel uneasy, it will also always inspire me when I think about how he was able to create something so beautiful in such a dark time in his life.
Regardless of its reoccurring themes, there are still bright moments sprinkled throughout the mixtape, whether he’s rapping about the success he’s seen or even just flexing his rapping abilities (“It’s the rap diablo, macho when I drop flows.”) There’s never a dull moment. On “Here We Go,” one of my personal favourites, he celebrates his success, proudly declaring that he’s done it all without a Drake (or JAY Z) feature. Mac never needed a co-sign from any of the biggest rappers in the game because his talents were enough to capture fans like me and make us fans forever.
To Mac, thank you for the best birthday gift. Thank you for providing the world with your art and for showing me that life is full of the good, the bad and the ugly. Thank you for being there for me through your music when I needed it the most. Thank you for being so honest. Thank you for showing me that every battle is worth fighting. Thank you for making Faces. Thank you for being you.