Mac DeMarco’s five best albums: A crash course into the songwriter’s weird world
There’s a glint in Mac DeMarco‘s eye that told me I would be a fan of his long before I heard any of his music. It was one of equal parts. The sort that, when creased in a fit of laughter, led by his charming gap-toothed smile, would encourage you to join him in whatever frivolity was taking place, while it could soon switch, when paired with a humble acoustic and played host to some of the tender songwriting we’ve seen in his later work.
What was apparent straight away, before I pressed play, was an artist of great complexity. Profundity and depth, wrapped up in hedonistic showmanship and bravado early on, paint a truly modern picture of the male experience. Crippled by societal norms, yet with so much to say.
While he may have openly admitted that songs dedicated to cheap branded cigarettes and watered-down beers were symptomatic of a carefree attitude to his own skills, DeMarco always approached it with some level of depth. Neatly tucked into verses and choruses would be easter egg-like references to an on-the-nose level of vulnerability. So when the mask fell at the turn of the fifth album and DeMarco achingly led into his humanity, his legacy as something wholly more than a class clown soundtracker for modern parties was cemented.
The intensely reverberated guitar lines weren’t abandoned, just redecorated and given permission to slow down and make peace with the slowly introduced keyboard that helped steer DeMarco’s more emotionally in tune and artistically patient musical voice take control. As such, he’s quietly carved himself a liberated niche, beholden to his own record label, his own studio and a community of fans willing to hear whatever truth he has to tell.
He’s an unlikely rockstar in the modern age. Not because labels wilfully brand his music slacker or because he represents the alt-kids. But because he’s unwaveringly authentic and unapologetic in his approach, which in the modern age is a trait to be cherished. Not to mention, he’s done all that by using pan flutes and kazoos.
The best albums by Mac DeMarco:
Mac’s best songwriting – This Old Dog
Release Date: May 2017 | Producer: Mac DeMarco | Label: Captured Tracks
For any musician worth their salt, there comes a moment when they have to abandon their fan base a little bit. In 2017, Mac was at that point. He’d perfected the art of whimsical modern rock, hinging around a relatively simple four-chord structure and a reverberated guitar line. But on This Old Dog, the keyboard provided a more patient soundboard for him to raise important existential questions. Be it his own relationship, the passage of time in his life or most prominent, his relationship with his father, Mac slowly confided in the soft tones of an electronic keyboard.
Not exactly like Bowie setting off into space, but for Mac’s die-hard fans, it was a worrying departure and one that signalled the end of inhibitive drinking and silliness. The lights had been turned back on, and everyone was asked to leave. The essence of Mac remained the same on ‘Baby You’re Out’ and ‘Still Beating’, but it had been tempered to give way to clever metaphors that muse on existentialism. It’s somewhere between self-deprecating and self-accepting, marking the beginning of a more mature artistic arc.
Standout track: ‘Moonlight On The River’
Mac’s desert island album – One Wayne G
Release Date: April 2023 | Producer: Mac DeMarco | Label: Mac’s Record Label
At nine hours long, you’ll have plenty to keep yourself occupied as you stare into the deep orange embers. It’s anything but streamlined, conventional or sensical and largely serves as a guidebook of what not to do as a recording artist. But in reality, that’s the point. Operating under his own steam of his label and in the barefoot comfort of his own home studio, Mac scrolled down an endless bank of songs and thought to simply share it with the world, no pretence, no marketing and no tricks.
Admittedly, it doesn’t carve the same narrative nuance as the rest of his work and to the uninitiated, it may just sound like mushroom-laced lift music. But all of the funky little licks that punctuate some of his greatest are given freedom to roam, and nonsensical vocal adlibs are allowed to play along without danger of ruining a narrative arc. It’s a whatever album and a jumbled-up bag of fleeting ideas, but to those who know Mac, it’s an unfiltered view into his creative mind.
Standout track: ‘20190724′
Mac’s album for your adolescence<strong> – </strong>2
Release Date: October 2012 | Producer: Mac DeMarco | Label: Captured Tracks
When the biggest hit of any record is a reverberated indie ode to a cigarette brand, you’re clearly dialling in its listenership. When this record was released in 2012, the music industry was waving goodbye to an era of indie sleeve and welcoming in a slicker brand of synthesised pop-indie. As a fan, it felt relatively binary and true personality felt lost in the void. But this album seamlessly blended the two.
While on the foreground, it was packed with the sort of humour we’ve come to associate with an early DeMarco, there were glimpses of sensitivity that perfectly complemented the record’s softer melodic edges. Which ultimately made sense given the fact that the record was entirely self-produced and recorded, in the comfort of his own bedroom, pouring every ounce of his own personality and sensibility into the record.
Standout track: ‘Freaking Out The Neighbourhood’
Mac’s most underrated album – Another One
Release Date: August 2015 | Producer: Mac DeMarco | Label: Captured Tracks
By this point, we were fully accustomed to Mac’s jangly DIY composition style and wondered how far he could take this slacker jazz aesthetic without limiting his own potential. While he truly turned the corner on his follow up record This Old Dog, he peaked around the corner with Another One, leaning into the synthesised tones of his keyboard to explore the meaning of his relationship.
At just 8 tracks long, it feels more like a pocketful of new ideas softly presented to the world to gauge the perception of an upcoming change from Salad Days. Sonically patient and lyrically nuanced, it more outrightly foregrounded a sense of insecurity that many fans chose to ignore in the midst of reverberated chaos and raucous live shows. Its brilliance doesn’t necessarily unfold with time, revealing a true evolutionary genius, but instead it serves as a familiar friend, an album that will never let you down and wholeheartedly serve you an accurate slice of Mac’s artistic sensibilities.
Standout track: ‘Just To Put Me Down’
Mac’s definitive album – Salad Days
Release Date: April 2014 | Producer: Mac DeMarco | Label: Captured Tracks
The album title was simply coined from Shakespeare’s term to describe a period of carefree innocence, a chapter that 2014 Mac DeMarco had a firm artistic chokehold on. While his practice of hedonistic adolescent rituals proved to be somewhat damaging, on this album, he fearlessly held a torch for our idealistic youth to follow, lost in the dim haze of a summer sunset and spiralling into a sense of reverberated calmness.
Salad Days marked Mac’s unique footprint in the musical world, creating a sound a generation would wilfully copy in the remaining decade, but not quite nailing the subtle balance of endearing silliness that existed on this record. Subtly layering in concerns of insecurity between celebrations of youthful exuberance was what made Mac so compelling and relatable in the early stages of the 2010s. Presented on a palette that had one foot in the psychedelic 1960s and the other in the synth-laden future, this record acted as the perfect bridge for young music fans to understand their taste.
Standout track: ‘Goodbye Weekend’
