In my small effort to share the so-much-more Macklemore has to offer, here are five songs of his that inspired me to be more: 1. That, and as my brother put it so eloquently, I am going to miss paying less than a small fortune to see him live again. Thus, I have a strong emotional connection with his music, which doesn’t make me a bigger or ‘better’ fan of his compared to anyone else, it just makes me feel a certain away when I hear “oh yeah Macklemore, I know him, the Thrift Shop guy, right?”īut that’s the amazing thing about music, is it not? One song can mean a thousand different things to a thousand different people. The source of this contradiction and, sure- selfishness- is that, more than any other musician, Ben has had a lasting and extremely positive impact on my life and creative pursuits, one that I can only begin to describe in this post.

It’s just that I wish it was almost any other song of his that people got to experience first. Ultimately, it’s not his success that bothers me at all, considering I used to tell anyone that would listen about his music. It’d be the equivalent of the most moving, dramatic, and soul-enriching film you’ve ever seen only being remembered by the masses for a scene that was merely comic relief.Īnd that’s exactly what I fear– that Mack will fade into one-hit wonder oblivion (yes, you could make arguments about “Same Love” also being a hit- I just wish it was as popular as “Thrift Shop”) and be remembered only as the goofy white guy that rapped about poppin’ tags and zebra jammies, when his lyrics have so much more to offer the world. While I am subject to the phenomenon of snobbery that anyone who was a fan of an artist before they got big is, what actually ’bothers’ me is that of all his work, the song people now associate Macklemore with is the one with the least important message. I recently expressed my dislike for the song, which instantly brought accusations that my antipathy was only because an artist I had liked for a while suddenly became popular.

Recently, Ben (Macklemore) has experienced worldwide success thanks to the insanely popular “Thrift Shop”.

What works of pop-media (books, TV, music, movies, art) have had the most profound impact on your life?įor over two years, I would yammer to anyone that was even remotely interested in hip-hop about Macklemore. ”He’s a white guy from Seattle who raps about real issues and his life, not just 40s, bitches, and blunts, man,” or so my elevator pitch would go.

Macklemore song list