Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, the rapper and producer duo behind disturbingly overplayed 2012 hit Thrift Shop, know how to get under people’s skin. Not via incendiary lyrical content or Kanye-esque proclamations of greatness, but by being really bloody annoying. Garish TV theme-tune-style melodies, Macklemore’s contrived, am-dram-ish tone, and lyrics that lie outside the boundaries of sense coagulate into writhing and indestructible earworms. The pair continue this work on their second album, most notably with the Idris Elba-featuring Dance Off, a song that combines a blaring vocal sample with the actor’s bizarrely accented spoken-word missive, and Let’s Eat, which sees Macklemore rap about his penchant for carbs and how that plays out corporeally (“My girl’s shaped like a bottle of Coke / Me, I’m shaped like a bottle of nope”). Admittedly, the pair also cover weightier topics – the co-opting of hip-hop, music industry machinations and parenting dilemmas – but it’s all against a backdrop of basicness that continues to grate.
