Looks like Macklemore has haters too, just like Gotye.
You know how we’re all excited and starry-eyed over Macklemore & Ryan Lewis here in Seattle? Well, apparently the folks over at Spin aren’t drinking the faux fur-flavored “Thrift Shop” Kool-Aid because a pretty scathing analysis/take-down of the No. 1 song in America over on their website.
Watch: Macklemore “Thrift Shop” parody videos
The post, headlined “Stop saying nice things about Macklemore’s ‘Thrift Shop,'” makes some interesting points, but in my opinion it loses its steam at the end when it compares the song to a Goodie Mob b-side from 1995.
Here’s a choice selection:
” … it’s a rap from a white guy celebrating common sense and sustainability — spending money at the local Goodwill or Salvation Army instead of at the mall or some streetwear boutique — that misses the mark and ends up as a party track for privileged dweebs.”
And there’s this too:
“Probably shouldn’t have to explain this in 2013, but when you didn’t have to wear hand-me-down threads or thrift-shop clothes your whole life, there’s a novelty to wearing them in your 20s so you have some extra beer money. … Macklemore’s embrace of the thrift shop is exclusively for wacky outfits to get him attention at parties, as well as something to lord over his peers in Gucci. He is, in the hierarchy of people poring over cheap-ass clothes in the Goodwill, only slightly above jerks who go there for Halloween outfits.”
You can read the entire post here.
So SPIN’s argument is basically that the subculture of well-off people who frequent thrift shops is dickish, and if you’re going to sing about it at all, it shouldn’t be in a rap?