Mac Miller’s favourite albums of the 1990s
Born in 1992, Mac Miller was a very young boy throughout the ’90s, but the decade’s music left its mark on him.
Mac spoke about his favourite ever albums during a conversation with Complex back in 2013, and his ’90s choices were very telling. While he would only have been one year of age when it originally came out, he was, as an adult, a big fan of Midnight Marauders, A Tribe Called Quest’s third album, which he characterised as “real hip-hop.”
That same year also saw the release of Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), which, again, Mac thought was “real hip-hop.” Or, as he put it for emphasis, “reeeeeeeal hiiiiiiip-hop.”
Mac wasn’t only about straight-up hip-hop, though, as his next selection made clear. He thought Portishead’s 1994 album Dummy was “fucking incredible,” and, while it certainly took inspiration from hip-hop, that album is generally considered to have been a pioneering work of trip-hop, which was decidedly its own thing.
Mac also named D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar album from 1995, noting how it’s like a “drug,” before he shifted back to hip-hop. Big L’s Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous, he said, was the “album that made [him] start rapping.”
From 1996, Mac highlighted the Fugees’ second album, The Score, which he loved for how it played. Mentioning his respect for Lauryn Hill in particular, he also pointed to the song ‘Zealots’ from the album, claiming it is “the greatest sound in the world.”
Erykah Badu’s Baduizm was another big one for Mac, which he said reminded him of “driving by yourself at nighttime, on like a highway, and no other cars are on the street and you’re doing a long road trip. It’s like four in the morning and this album is keeping you there.”
His other favourite album from ’97 was Elliott Smith’s Either/Or, which was Smith’s third album. It recalled Mac’s experience with childhood depression, which made it an especially affecting listen for him. Smith, Mac felt, was a genius, but “he’s just very sad.”
Mac’s last highlight from the ’90s was Outkast’s Aquemini album, their third, which they put out in 1998. His love for this one seemed to go beyond words. Instead of speaking about it, he just gestured wildly with his hands. It went some way to expressing how he felt about it.