TRAINWRECKORDS: Macklemore and Ryan Lewis's "This Unruly Mess I've Made"

With the benefit of hindsight, I think we know now that if Kendrick truly had a problem with Macklemore, the entire world would be singing about it.

I was well into time of my life when I was a lame dad who didn't have to worry about new music anymore by 2014, but based on this, I was better off. What a mess to wade into. As someone who lives in the Pacific Northwest, I can say that Macklemore is still a local hero who can pull a decent crowd whenever he wants. Oh, and I'll still stick up for Spider-Man 3. Raimi clearly didn't have his heart in the Venom stuff, but a lot of it still works. Emo Peter was supposed to be cringy.

I am so annoyed that the mariners have stopped playing ceiling can't hold us as the 7th inning stretch song. That song is corny and fun and therefore perfect for a sports anthem

woah I didn’t realize Macklemore made “Ooh I Love My Wife” three years before Chance did

Dance Off slaps, man. Genuinely don't know if this deserved a trainwreckords episode.

don't worry Todd you're not alone, I like Spider-Man 3 as well.

Royals is an awful song IMO and I can kinda see why some would see it as racist even though i'm sure that wasn't Lorde's intention.

We need to go back to not knowing anything about musicians. Like when Rivers Cuomo overshared on "Pinkerton" and the album bombed.

Last time i heard of Macklemore was when he had that beef with fellow hazbin Matisyahu. Which went was well as a beef between two LA nepo-baby YouTubers.

Is this the first Trainwreckord that includes a song from one of Todd's Top Ten lists?

As always, a fantastic video. My husband and I went and saw Macklemore on a whim a few years ago when he was on tour for the album and it ended up being one of the most energetic and fun speed we had been to in a while. The man is such a great performer and seemed like such a genuinely nice guy. He had recently gotten sober again and just seemed so happy and grateful to be there. If you get a chance, definitely go see him live!

was really shocked that you were gonna let "Brad Pitt's Cousin" fly by like that without noting that it sounds like some proto Lil Dicky creation... should've known you were gonna bring it full circle by the end as always

You have the name of Seasons in the sun in the endcredits...

Is there really people out there attempting “Downtown” at karaoke? Because I need to see it

Run from it all you want, The Big Day on Trainwreckords is inevitable. But seriously, this video an excellent summation of an artist processing their sudden, intense fame and the scrutiny that came with it.

Macklemore is always at his best when he’s being a goofy white guy from Seattle.

Hey, remember when this guy was goofing off on stage and put on a rubber witch mask and all of twitter started screaming about him being a vicious antisemite? I was never a a huge fan but that was the moment where I stopped taking the criticism seriously. I was already a bit a annoyed at my fellow queers for showering that clumsy but very supportive song in vitriol, but that shit got so performative the haters looked worse than the guy supposedly doing all these culture war crimes. Extremely unserious time on the internet, this guy's alright.

Wait... It's pronounced mack-le-more? Not mackle-more? I've been fucking that up his entire career apparently...

The whole time I was expecting a line like, “We’ve been talking a lot about Macklemore, but what about Ryan Lewis? His name is in there, too.” And it just never happened, but I’m not complaining, because I think there probably just isn’t anything to say about Ryan Lewis.

great video overall (on an album i've always hoped you'd cover) but i'm really confused about your take on let's eat ? i'm not saying it's a great song or that it's actually saying anything that profound, but i'm also not sure why you're brushing it off as simply a joke song about eating too much when it's about the far more nuanced topic of guilt around food and diet culture. there's maybe a couple self depricating lines in it, but i feel like it's clearly supposed to be one of the serious songs on the album. again, you're allowed to dislike the song, im not saying it's a particularly good one, but as someone who has struggled a lot with the aforementioned guilt around eating unhealthy food, the way you talked about this track genuinely made me kind of uncomfortable

Fantastic video! Btw your end card in this version still credits seasons in the sun

WANTED THIS ONE FOREVER THANK YOU TODD

Really looking forward to watching this but also dreading having to relitigate fucking Same Love, a song that makes me want to set myself on fire.

I liked Macklemore when it got big. I liked Macklemore after everything collapsed. I know I am cringe. I think that is fine.

Considering the recent uproar over Jack Harlow's new album, Todd might have perfect timing in releasing this now. I know Macklemore is not Jack Harlow. It's just that we continue to struggle with matters of white artists and creators colonizing Black culture, and this is a fascinating story of a white rapper who seemed to put some effort into figuring out the situation he got himself into.

I think the best thing Macklemore did for me was introduce me to Mary Lambert, the featured vocalist on Same Love. I always hoped she'd get more attention.

This is an episode i never thought i needed but absolutely did. Macklemore received a lot of undue hate for being a symptom of an issue and not the issue itself. While i have my own complicated feelings on the palestine stuff im glad he is using his platform to advocate against war and oligarchy to this day

Macklemore is a good example of conscientiousness taken to crippling levels. It's important for white rappers to be mindful of privilege issues, but if you're going to pursue a career in hip hop, just do it. He was clearly far too uncomfortable with himself to sustain success; people aren't going to want to listen to a guy who looks like he thinks he doesn't deserve to be there.

The impression I got walking away from your description of White Privilege II was Macklemore exorcising the demons in his head from the previews two years. You immediately following that up with "he relapsed again" undercuts that, but I guess no one has just one type of demon... As for me, I listened to both The Heist and Gemini (the first post-Ryan Lewis album) and ... honestly they went in one ear and out the other. Before watching this video I would have said that the songs that became hits were the best songs. Maybe I'll listen to both of them again and see if anything changes, but I do remember rolling my eyes at the song about "lol air jorands bad" (though I also remember it did have something to say about people who steal shoes) and did appreciate the Jimmy Iovine song. I'd almost certainly still walk way saying good kid mAAd city is better, though. Sorry. My first time through that album was decidedly NOT in one ear out the other. OH also I distinctly remember Ben Affleck's Cousin getting some buzz/promotion of some sort at the time??? Somehow??? My memory is very vague but I distinctly remember seeing it around. Maybe that should have been tried as a single if they were pushing it that hard.

Holy fuck I think I dislocated my jaw when Spoons started playing, it dropped completely to the floor.

You know that thing, submissive urination, when dogs will piss themselves if you're mean to them? Macklemore is basically doing the human equivalent of that which what happens when the internet jumps down your throat for even the tiniest of fuck ups.

Good Kid was obviously better but the controversy over The Heist's win has made us forget that The Heist was a really really good album

Good Kid is not his debut, Section 80 is (at least as Kendrick Lamar, he had some stuff as K Dot)

My friend and I have been occasionally rewatching the old year-end best/worst lists together, and we just had a conversation literally a week ago during one of them, wondering what happened to Macklemore. Like, we remembered there being something that made everyone stop listening to him, but we’d already completely forgotten any details about his career aside from a handful of songs

I will never understand why Macklemore felt the need to apologize to Kendrick. Yeah, Kendrick's music then was amazing, but don't act like Macklemore didn't have two of the dopest songs of that year. It also strikes me wrong that they tried to disqualify him for no real reason. I'm indifferent on who should've won, so I will never understand why Macklemore sabotaged himself.

The hate for Macklemore always seemed kinda overblown; he seems like a well meaning guy and I’ve never had it in me to have any strong negative feelings toward him. That spooning song is definitely one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard, though.

I've been keeping up an ultimate "Worst Lines of Trainwreckords" list that includes such examples as "peñius colada", "modren man", and most recently, John Fogerty serving up some bad food with “Gotta have another grenade salad, split it with your enemy”. If you are reading this, have the time, have watched this new episode, and think you know what the worst line of lyrics from the covered album is, that is in this episode, I would appreciate leaving a reply with your opinion. I want to get an accurate consensus.

All I know is that I love Downtown sincerely and unironically and no one will ever get me to say a word against it. ♫ Going thirty-eight, Dan, chill the fuck out, mow your damn lawn and sit the hell down! ♫

honestly, in our current world of irony poisoned misery, it makes perfect sense to have a Macklemore Nostalgia Era. i miss when being evil was worse than being cringe. i hope he has a big comeback someday (even though i highly doubt he will, for many reasons lol). and can't hold us still slaps.

As no-fun as this must have been to make, this was a joy to watch. As someone who rode *hard* for Macklemore at the time and who will still defend him for being one of the few known-quantity musicians with enough balls to be openly leftist anymore, I remember this album all too well. Like so many Trainwreckords before and since, it should have stayed as a therapy session. "Downtown" still fucks catastrophically, though.

But did you remember to charge for the video?

It’s interesting you didn’t touch on one of the bigger controversies I’ve seen about Same Love - the entire second verse was about calling out homophobic rappers and touting “you all know how awful racism is, and yet you do the same thing to gays?”, and that was a huge part of the rhetoric his racist fans used against other rappers. A lot of bigotry towards racial and ethnic groups (especially Muslims) is by weaponizing their perceived homophobia against them, and the fact that a white rapper was the one to talk about homophobia in rap made people try to justify “see? It’s black people that are the problem!”. I can’t help but feel like that had something to do with that verse in WP2 Also dude, thank you so fucking much for that section about the Kevin song. It was small, but the issue is still completely overlooked and it means a lot that you talked about your experience. Fuck Big Pharma, seriously

Macklemore's moment is such an Obama era relic. It kind of speaks to a more progressive moment in time when we all had the desire to question "Should this goofy white guy be taken seriously discussing social issues?" Whereas now we have AI generated Christian nationalist meme songs sucking up the oxygen in the thinkpiece space. I think this is one place where I can say the past was absolutely better than the present. But I'm glad Ben is still out there, being as earnest as ever, trying to use what little voice he has to stand up for what he believes in.

great video as always. what I’d like to add is that Macklemore doesn’t do much to dispel the “joke rapper” allegations, when Spoons has the exact same premise as Business Time and Dance Now steals the flow from Jizz in my Pants.

ohhhhhhh baby i've been waiting for this one for a while

Can’t wait for the inevitable Jack Harlow “Monica” episode within the next couple years!!! -Botched rendering around 6:56, 16:36-16:38 -I wanna go back in time before I knew Spoons existed

16:56 Grandmaster Caz was actually a member of The Cold Crush Brothers, not the Sugarhill Gang (tho ironically, one of the members did use his rhymes, without permission, for "Rapper's Delight")

Todd, I don't want to disappoint you, but by all technical accounts Section.80 (TDE, 2011) is considered Kendrick Lamar's debut album - Not good kid, m.A.A.d city (Interscope/TDE/Aftermath, 2012).

Kendrick's debut album was Section 80, there's a cool prequel to Sing About me Im Dying of Thirst On It

Macklemore was so cringe that I have no clue how we liked him in hindsight. (Including myself, unfortunately).

Drop everything, Todd is talking! I'm a little sad for M+RL, but excited to hear the story I was only vaguely aware of at the time.

Blocked for me

I still love Downtown though

I think this is the first Trainwreckords episode that covers an album I own. Heck, one that I bought within the month it came out. I kinda went "Aww, but I like that one" seeing the notification pop-up — only for me to realize under a minute later that I really only ever return to, like, two songs from this album. Certainly I never return to the one where I first heard the "deez nuts" joke.

48 MINUTES??? (not complaining, just pleasantly shocked)