"Thrift Shop" is a song written and performed by American hip hop duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring vocals from American singer

Wanz Michael "Mike" Wansley (born October 9, 1961), better known by his stage names Wanz and TeeWanz, is an American singer, songwriter and rapper. He performs in various genres, including rock, R&B, soul, hip hop, and pop. He was featured on fellow ...

, released on August 27, 2012, as the fourth single from the former's debut studio album, '' The Heist'' (2012). The lyrics show Macklemore's esteem for thrift shops and saving money, rather than flaunting expensive items like many rappers. The song was met with universal acclaim, with various music reviewers praising its humorous lyrics and social critique. Despite being released on Macklemore's

independent record label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...

with distribution by the Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA), a Warner Music Group company, the single was a sleeper hit. It reached number one on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and has since sold over 6 million copies in the US alone. The song also reached number one in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, France, Denmark, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand. The song would go on to become the number one song of 2013 by ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' and in 2019, it was named by ''Billboard'' as both the number one song of the 2010s on both the Hot Rap Songs and the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. A music video was released simultaneously with the song on August 29, 2012, and has had more than 1.7 billion views on YouTube as of September 2022. At the

56th Annual Grammy Awards The 56th Annual Grammy Awards presentation was held on January 26, 2014, at Staples Center in Los Angeles. The show was broadcast on CBS at 8 p.m. ET/PT and was hosted for the third time by LL Cool J. The show was moved to January to avoid comp ...

in 2014, the single won for

Best Rap Performance The Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance is an honor presented to recording artists for quality rap performances. It was first presented at the 31st Annual Grammy Awards in 1989 and again at the 32nd Annual Grammy Awards in 1990, after which p ...

and

Best Rap Song The Grammy Award for Best Rap Song is an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality songs in the rap music genre. Honors in several ...

Background and composition

The song illustrates Macklemore's interest in buying cheap clothing from thrift shops, disdaining

designer label The term designer label refers to clothing, luxury automobile manufacturers and other personal accessory items sold under an often prestigious marque which is commonly named after a designer, founder, or a location-like where the company was fo ...

s and trends. He claims to enjoy donning "your granddad's clothes" and impulsively buying a sharp-looking but dubious-smelling fur stole just because "it was 99 cents". Macklemore spoke to MTV News about the meaning of the song. "Rappers talk about, oh I buy this and I buy that, and I spend this much money and I make it rain, and this type of champagne and painting the club, and this is the kind of record that's the exact opposite," he explained. "It's the polar opposite of it. It's kind of standing for like let's save some money, let's keep some money away, let's spend as little as possible and look as fresh as possible at the same time." Asked why he thought the track was so successful, Macklemore replied, "I think hip-hop goes in waves, and it's something that's different. It's a concept. It's obviously against the

status quo is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, political, religious or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the current state of social structure and/or values. W ...

of what people normally rap about. This is a song that goes against all of that. How much can you save? How fresh can you look by not looking like anybody else? And on top of that, you have an infectious beat and a hook that gets stuck in people's heads." "Thrift Shop" is written in the key of G minor and has a tempo of 95 beats per minute. The song is prominently underpinned by a looping saxophone melody.

Critical reception

The song received widespread critical acclaim. It has been called a critique of the

product placement Product placement, also known as embedded marketing, is a marketing technique where references to specific brands or products are incorporated into another work, such as a film or television program, with specific promotional intent. Much of th ...

common in modern hip hop, but '' The New York Times'' critic Jon Caramanica wrote, " 's not quite the robust sendup of hip-hop-extravagance clichés that it aspires to be." Robert Copsey of ''

Digital Spy Digital Spy (DS) is a British-based entertainment, television and film website and brand and is the largest digital property at Hearst UK. Since its launch in 1999, Digital Spy has focused on entertainment news related to television programmes, ...

'' gave the song 5 out of 5 stars, calling it "a rare beast of a song - original, musically daring and genuinely funny." '' Entertainment Weekly'' named the song as the 18th best single of 2012. The song was number 1 in the Triple J Hottest 100 countdown of 2012. In 2022, '' American Songwriter'' named it Macklemore's best song.

Chart performance

In the United States, the song debuted on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 on September 15, 2012. It dropped out the following week but re-entered six weeks later on October 20, 2012. The song then steadily climbed the chart until it entered the top ten in the issue dated January 5, 2013. It replaced Bruno Mars' " Locked Out of Heaven" at number one in its 16th week on the chart on February 2, 2013 and remained atop the chart for six non-consecutive weeks. It also topped the Rap Songs chart for fifteen weeks. It was the first song in the history of the Digital Songs chart to experience a jump in sales in each of its first five weeks atop the chart, "Thrift Shop" was the second best-selling single of 2013 in the US after Robin Thicke's "

Blurred Lines "Blurred Lines" is a song by American singer Robin Thicke featuring American rappers T.I. and Pharrell Williams from the former's sixth studio album of the same name (2013). Solely produced by Williams, it was released as the album's lead si ...

", with 6,148,000 copies sold during the year. As of November 2015, the song has sold 7,740,000 downloads in the United States, making it the fifth all-time best-selling digital single in the country. The song also had much success on ''Billboard'''s component charts, remaining atop the

Digital Songs The Digital Songs or Digital Song Sales chart (previously named Hot Digital Songs) ranks the best-selling digital songs in the United States, as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published by '' Billboard'' magazine. Although it originally sta ...

chart for ten weeks and topping ''Billboard''s Radio Songs chart for two weeks. It also peaked at number one on the On-Demand Songs chart and remained there for eleven weeks until week ending March 30, 2013. It set a record on that chart as the first song to reach two million streams in a single week since the chart's inception. The song also topped the

R&B/Hip-Hop Songs The Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart ranks the most popular R&B and hip hop songs in the United States and is published weekly by ''Billboard''. Rankings are based on a measure of radio airplay, sales data, and streaming activity. The chart had 100 p ...

chart for fourteen consecutive weeks. The song was the first independently distributed title to top the ''Billboard''

since " We Are the World 25 for Haiti" in February 2010. It was also only the second independent song to reach number one on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart, nearly 20 years after Lisa Loeb's "

Stay (I Missed You) "Stay (I Missed You)" is a song by American singer-songwriter Lisa Loeb. It was released in May 1994 as the lead single from the original movie soundtrack to ''Reality Bites'' (1994). The song was written and composed by Loeb herself, while produ ...

" in 1994. ''Billboard'' ranked it as the No. 1 song for 2013. In the United Kingdom, "Thrift Shop" entered the UK Singles Chart at number twenty four in late January 2013, despite having been available as a single via

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since August 1, 2012. The following week, the single rose twenty-two positions to number two. Two weeks after entering the chart, the song reached number one on February 10, 2013 ― for the week ending date February 16, 2013 ― making Macklemore and Ryan Lewis only the second act to have a number one in Britain with a self-released single. As of July 2013, "Thrift Shop" has sold 680,000 copies in the UK. In Canada, the song topped the

Canadian Hot 100 The Canadian Hot 100 is a music industry record chart in Canada for songs, published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine. The Canadian Hot 100 was launched on the issue dated March 31, 2007, and is currently the standard record chart in Canada; a n ...

for six consecutive weeks. It was the country's second best-selling digital song of 2013 with 554,000 copies sold (all versions combined).

Wider reception

In August 2013, the rapper Le1f publicly criticized Macklemore's song on Twitter, claiming that "Thrift Shop" borrowed its beat extensively from his own earlier song, "Wut". Some thrift shops have reported an increase in business, especially among college students, which they have attributed to the song. Several locations that were used in the music video and those that are located in the general vicinity of the places used for filming reported that their sales had not seen a sizable bump, but there was "attention."

Music video

The accompanying music video was co-directed by

Jon Jon Augustavo Jonathan Augustavo, better known as Jon Jon or Jon Jon Augustavo, is an American filmmaker, commercial director, and music video director who has written and directed works for artists including Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Mike Posner, Allen Stone, ...

, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. It was released on Lewis' YouTube channel on August 29, 2012. Filming took place at several thrift shops in Seattle, including Goodwill Outlet, Value Village in

Capitol Hill Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the ...

, Red Light Vintage and Fremont Vintage Mall, as well as at Seattle locations like the Unicorn/Narwhal Arcade Bar and the Northwest African American Museum. Macklemore attempted to persuade a fellow Seattle rapper, Sir Mix-a-Lot, to appear in the video but he did not return the calls. Some local Seattle musicians like Thomas Grey of Champagne Champagne appear in the music video, and a DeLorean is shown as well. The video was nominated at the

2013 MTV Video Music Awards The 2013 MTV Video Music Awards were held on August 25, 2013, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Marking the 30th installment of the award show, they were the first to be held in New York City not to use a venue within the borough of M ...

for Video of the Year.

In popular culture

Parodies

The children's show '' Sesame Street'' makes a parody of "Thrift Shop" in which Macklemore appeared playing the character "Mucklemore", shows

Oscar the Grouch Oscar the Grouch is a Muppet character created by Jim Henson and Jon Stone for the PBS/HBO children's television program ''Sesame Street''. He has a green body, no visible nose, and lives in a trash can. Oscar's favorite thing is trash, as eviden ...

and his other Grouches the proper way to recycle their trash. A parody was a part of a Pessach Shop Passover Jam, done for the Jewish holiday of Passover by the ''

a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...

'' group Six13. The American comedy artist

Rucka Rucka Ali Rucka Rucka Ali (born January 27, 1987) is an Israeli-American rapper, singer, radio personality, comedian, YouTuber, and parodist. He is best known for his dark humor, political and topical song parodies on YouTube. Much of his content pokes fu ...

parodied the song twice in his album ''

Black Man of Steal ''Black Man of Steal'' is the seventh studio album of Israeli-American parody rapper Rucka Rucka Ali. The album was released January 13, 2015, and distributed by Pinegrove Records. It peaked at number 7 on the '' Billboard'' Top Comedy Albums. ...

''. One of his parodies is titled "I'm

Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

", the other, "I'm Osama". Verizon Wireless parodied the song in a 2016 holiday promotion, this time in a laundromat.

Media

The song was also used in the trailers for the films ''

Pain & Gain ''Pain & Gain'' is a 2013 American action comedy film directed by Michael Bay and starring Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Anthony Mackie. It is based on the activities of the Sun Gym gang, a group of ex-convicts and bodybuilders convicted of ...

'', ''

The Internship ''The Internship'' is a 2013 American comedy film directed by Shawn Levy, written by Vince Vaughn and Jared Stern, and produced by Vaughn and Levy. The film stars Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as recently laid-off salesmen who attempt to compet ...

'' and '' Tammy''.

"Weird Al" Yankovic Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic ( ; born October 23, 1959) is an American singer, musician, songwriter, record producer, actor and author. He is best known for creating comedy songs that make light of pop culture and often parody specifi ...

recorded a cover version of "Thrift Shop" as part of his polka medley " NOW That's What I Call Polka!" for his 2014 album '' Mandatory Fun''.''Mandatory Fun'' liner notes In 2018, a slightly modified version of the original song was also used for Suncorp advertisements featuring their mascot, Sunny.Suncorp advertisement Are you ready to money with Sunny? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZIIjUpH4VMSuncorp Home Insurance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOFrp6sPx2kSuncorp - Sunny Growth Saver https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37IARE9ENfE

Formats and track listings

Credits and personnel

* Ryan Lewis – production * Macklemore – vocals, writing * DV One – scratches * Brooklyn Grinnell – vocals *

– vocals

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Decade-end charts

All-time charts

Certifications

References