Macklemore and Ryan Lewis: The Heist Review

"Shit it was only 99 cents!"

Artist: Macklemore and Ryan Lewis
Album: The Heist
Genre: Northwest/Conscious Hip-hop

7.1/10

     

    Macklemore (Mackleh-more?  Mackel-more?) is a conscious rapper, and a man who wants his message to be heard loud and clear.  Ryan Lewis is a producer fond of live instrumentation and a certain percussion instrument with 88 keys.  Together they have crafted one of the cleanest hip-hop records this year, but the question is: is it TOO clean?

     The record starts with a bang.  The beat echoes and acts as a pedestal for Macklemore to confidently and heroically belt out his verses, and the chorus reverberates as Macklemore “welcomes us to The Heist”.  “Can’t Hold Us” kicks up the fun another notch, with piano chords banging, quarter note snare hits pushing, and brass wailing.  “Thrift Shop”, already establishing itself with a hilarious video, incorporates an extremely catchy chorus with a fun and inventive sax line and Macklemore’s rants about getting laid in a dollar store outfit.  “Thin Line” brings it down to tell a failure-tinged love story; it’s most interesting aspect being the use of a dial tone as a chord.  Buffalo Madonna’s loud-mouthed bridge did not match the tone of the song, however.  The next track, “Same Love”, was another track that was well known.  With it’s strong advocacy of gay marriage and support for the LGBTQ community, “Same Love” proved to be a very important song.  It’s a subject that is usually avoided in the rap world, and such vehement support from such a popular rapper could have much more of an effect that people might think.  It helps that the song is fantastic as well.  The mournful piano and airy timbre combined with an extremely well-sung hook raised this simple ballad-rap to new heights.  But after “Same Love”, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis seem to run out of fresh ideas.  Ryan’s piano fetish permeates the remaining songs, and Macklemore incorporates a similar rhythm for many of his verses.  What salvages this, however, are the guest spots.  Ab-soul and Schoolboy Q especially bring a flair that injects the latter half of the album with life.

    It’s key to note that this album has two distinct artists: Ryan Lewis and Macklemore.  This is not just Macklemore’s album.  Macklemore devotes his attention to his lyrics, letting Ryan handle the production.  The problem that arises, however, is that sometimes it’s just a bit too divisive.  Ryan’s instrumental track “Bombom”, while a decent track, doesn’t fit with the album.  Lyrically, Macklemore’s writing style lacks diversity, opting for emotional strength with the occasional fun line.  The track “Gold” was the only truly bad song on the record.  He uses the word “gold” around 40 times over the course of 4 minutes.  It was kind of really annoying.

     Overall, this is not a bad effort at all.  The first half of this album charms with some awesome poppy catchy hooks, conscious lyrics, and fresh production.  The tactics used do get a bit stale, but they’re still decent-to-good through the rest of the album.  Far worse things have debuted at the number 2 spot on the Billboard 200.  7.1 heists pulled off out of 10.

FAVE TRACKS: Ten Thousand Hours, Thrift Shop, Same Love, White Walls