After Rock and Roll Night Club – which brings us to the three LPs Mac has on this list – I figured, “Hey, this EP is doing pretty well. It’s taken for granted that Mac helped re-establish the idea of the indie singer-songwriter. Songwriting over sound, though the sounds he used were deep and earthy. Musically, of course, Mac was a real breath of fresh air at the time. It was him, under his real name, recording and performing, out there for all to see. It also sort of created the weird Cult of Personality that happened, for better or worse, with his success. With Mac, I could tell there was something about his personality and charm that sort of screamed that, sort of like Harry Nilsson. When I first heard his Bandcamp stuff – some music was under Mac DeMarco, some music was under Makeout Videotape – and we decided to sign him, I’d encouraged him to go by his own name and no longer give the project a “band name.” Of course, now that happens all the time, but this was in an era where there were so many one-person projects that had a band name, many of whom were on our label. Mac DeMarco‘s impact on the 2010s is kind of multi-layered. Mac’s Best of the Decade is undoubtedly my favorite because of these incredibly personal looks at Mac’s three albums that made our Community’s list. Intro/Outro by Mike Sniper, Founder of Captured Tracks, Rian Fossett, now Creative Director at Matador, Katie Garcia, now Director of A&R at Secretly Group, and Pamela Garavano-Coolbaugh current Label Manager at Captured Tracks. What’s exciting about this look at Mac Demarco is that we’re getting the view from some of the major players in his career affiliated with his label, Captured Tracks through the 2010s. Editor’s Note: Shining a light on the more prominent artists of the passing decade we’ll be taking a look at the artists who made a monumental impact on the 2010s and landed several albums in our 200 Best Albums Of The 2010s list in a series of pieces through the end of 2019.

Mac demarco this old dog demos cover