14 February 2013
Macklemore made an unlikely return to the Irish charts in 2024 with ‘Hind’s Hall’, an impressively committed and articulate track in response to the heavy-handed treatment of pro-Palestine demonstrations on US college campuses. I say “unlikely” because most of us had probably lost track of Macklemore, weren’t aware of his politics, and didn’t expect the latest addition to the proud lineage of American protest music to come from the guy whose previous biggest hit was a skit about wearing second-hand onesies that smell of piss.
On a lesser order of merit, ‘Hind’s Hall’ also earns Macklemore some of my hard-won grace and favour – just in time too, nipping in right before our odometer of Ireland’s chart-toppers clicks around to ‘Thrift Shop’. Those of you filling in your Irish Number Ones bingo card will note the presence of a US male white rapper, a whiff of novelty treatment and cultural appropriation, and a sweary chorus: all chart-topping catnip to the record-buying Irish public and their love of Eminem. (Wanz is the deep-voiced singer of the chorus, by the way, and Ryan Lewis is the producer.) While more likeable and listenable than that dubious peer, for instance by not murdering or verbally abusing any women in the lyrics here, Macklemore has barely got his foot in the door and already we get a big-schlong brag and an R. Kelly quip, so his questionable taste runs to things other than the sartorial. The rest isn’t as funny or consumerist-critical as it seems to think it is, and Macklemore as a rapper doesn’t bring anything distinctive or interesting. I suppose ‘Thrift Shop’ is the kind of gaudy, musty thing you throw on when you’re not fussy or you no longer care.
Irish Number Ones 