Contact CU Independent News Staff Writer Thomas Roller at thomas.roller@colorado.edu
You know, being a college student is stressful. I always feel some kind of pressure. Assignments, deadlines, readings… it’s like I never get a break. So I’m glad Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are giving me an opportunity for catharsis as I talk about their awful, awful album.
Macklemore is a rapper from Seattle who achieved critical acclaim with his first project collaborating with Ryan Lewis, The Vs. EP, and continued to see success and even a Grammy win with the full-length 2012 release The Heist. This Unruly Mess is his sophomore effort, and I hate to fall on worn-out jokes, but wow, what an unfortunately apt title.
Let’s just roll up our sleeves and stick our hands in. This album features Macklemore’s particular goofy, self-referential, almost self-parodic style of rapping and Ryan Lewis’ very competent and orchestral, if not particularly diverse, production. These are qualities the album retains from The Heist, except this time they left behind all the likability and brought along all the worst parts of the album instead.
It starts off with the admittedly pretty-sounding “Light Tunnels,” which is about Macklemore’s time at the Grammy Awards and his meteoric rise to fame. The hook is pretty fantastic and Macklemore is excellent at setting a scene and storytelling. Then, he begins ranting about how much he hates being lauded as a genius and how he doesn’t deserve it and how fake the whole music industry is. First track and we’re already getting the disingenuous self-righteousness that turned me off of a few Macklemore songs in the past. This track also brings back bad memories of his little stunt about tweeting the apology text he sent to Kendrick Lamar for winning against Lamar for the Best Hip-Hop Album award.
Macklemore’s particular brand of messiah complex will come up again later in this review, but I want to point out that when this album’s not coming off as preachy, it’s just annoying. This includes one of the lead singles, “Downtown,” which is another very competently produced funk-inspired song… that’s about mopeds. It’s inoffensive, but it’s also not as nearly as funny as I think Macklemore wants us to think it is. If any song is trying (and failing) to be the spiritual sequel to “Thrift Shop,” this one is it.
However, when it comes to utterly insipid song subjects, “Downtown” doesn’t hold a candle to “Dance-Off” or “Let’s Eat.” The former is literally describing a dance contest, and it’s so overblown and cheesy that it comes off like it’s trying to be a parody, but the song contains no real jokes to speak of. It also inexplicably features Idris Elba dictating the hook. Yeah, that Idris Elba, the actor.
“Let’s Eat” at least tries to contain some humor, in the same way that Chernobyl tried to contain its plutonium. The lyric that jumped out at me was “My girl’s shaped like a bottle of Coke/Me, I’m shaped like a bottle of nope.” If being unfunny was a crime, Macklemore would be brought before the Hague.
It’s not always mind-boiling dad humor, though. A lot of the tracks on this album are just plain bland. “Bolo Tie” and “Brad Pitt’s Cousin” are both too lacking in personality to be interesting and too annoying to be sleep aids.
There are a few bright spots on this album. “Growing Up,” about Macklemore being a father and featuring a hook sung by Ed Sheeran, is a sincerely heartfelt moment, and stirs some timeless emotions. If the whole album was like that it would be genius. Another highlight is the song “Need to Know” featuring Chance the Rapper, whose style adds a very welcome note of color.
In keeping with the rest of this album’s sense of humor, the track I was most excited about is the most disappointing. When I saw that “Buckshot” featured KRS-One, a hip-hop veteran, and DJ Premier, one of my favorite producers, I was excited. Macklemore is a technically proficient rapper, to be sure, and I thought that if he had a Premier beat as a foundation he’d do great.
Well, Premier didn’t produce, which seems like a waste. Instead he contributes a (very good) ten-second DJ scratch. The beat we do get has this horn sample running through the entire song that can only be described as “hideous.” It doesn’t match the beat at all and it gets in the way of a lot of the actual verses. It sounds like a passive aggressive air raid siren. It sounds like a kazoo throwing a temper tantrum. It sounds like Ryan Lewis sampled the squeakiest fart.
You’d think after spending its runtime annoying the listener, this album would have the good sense to bow out quietly and slither away to be forgotten about. Well, Macklemore decides instead to end with “White Privilege II,” and if you thought Macklemore was insincere and condescending about being an equality ally before, then get ready to have your perceptions completely unchanged, because that’s what this comes off like.
I get that the standards of etiquette for a white celebrity to comment on race are liquid at best, but Macklemore’s stance here simply doesn’t really say anything. Much like “Light Tunnels,” this track offers up very vague, empty appeals, this time to equality and peace and just being willing to understand each other, maaaan. Now, that’s not a bad sentiment, sure, but it’s so lazy and tokenly supportive that it just comes off as entirely patronizing to the ideas and struggles referenced in the song.
This Unruly Mess I’ve Made isn’t likely to win any awards, unlike its predecessor. That’s why I’ve decided to give it a special accolade: the first album I’ve reviewed on Roller’s Stone that I unequivocally hate. I hope Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are glad that their album has at least one distinguishing feature.
