Indie Hit 'Thrift Shop' Makes Billboard History
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(Image Source: Jason Koenig)
BY CHRISTIAN BRYANT
A song celebrating the frugality and trendiness of shopping at thrift stores has made it atop the Billboard’s Hot 100 list, and, in doing so, joined an exclusive music club.
The appropriately titled “Thrift Shop” by Seattle hip-hop duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis hit number one in its 16th week on the Billboard charts.
As it turns out, the homage to bargain-hunting — that gives shout outs to velour jumpsuits, broken keyboards and Goodwill — is just the second song by an independent artist to crown Billboard’s coveted list. The only other musician to do that?
Lisa Loeb, a then unknown and unsigned artist, who got her big break in 1994. Loeb’s song “Stay (I Missed You)” made it onto the soundtrack for “Reality Bites,” starring Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke.
So, why all the buzz about “Thrift Shop?” As Macklemore tells it, the song is unlike anything else that’s come out in quite a while.
“It’s a concept that goes against the status quo of what people normally rap about: buying expensive things, ‘How much money can you spend on things?’...”
A writer marks the viral explosiveness of “Thrift Shop” as more of a sign-of-the-times, saying, “Artists no longer require the traditional means of music distribution in order to monetise their work, as labels are being subverted by the Internet... The song, 'Thrift Shop', has shifted more than 1 million units online since its release, proving that there are alternatives to having a major label spending big bucks to promote you.”
It comes at no surprise that some music critics have scoffed at the track, with one SPIN writer saying the song misses the point of thrift shops entirely:
“Macklemore's embrace of the thrift shop is exclusively for wacky outfits to get him attention at parties, as well as something to lord over his peers in Gucci. He is, in the hierarchy of people poring over cheap-ass clothes in the Goodwill, ... At the top of this hierarchy, of course, are people who don't have enough money to buy new clothes.”
But a writer for Grantland is a bit less-critical of the “rebound novelty song” post-Gangnam style, saying that the song “harks back to ’90s underground rap, when it was OK to just be a goofball for a few verses over a dollar record beat without having to get all party rock about it.”
The duo told MTV the newfound fame won’t curb their current momentum. They plan to keep releasing singles from their album and, of course, continue shopping at thrift stores.
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