"Thrift Shop" is a song written and performed by American

hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

duo

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Macklemore & Ryan Lewis were an American Hip hop music, hip hop duo from Seattle, Seattle, Washington, formed in 2009 by rapper MacklemoreTrust, Gary (2013)Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' 'Can't Hold Us' Makes Hot 100 History, ''Billboard (magazine), B ...

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 R&B singer. He performs in various genres, including rock, R&B, soul, hip-hop, and pop. He was featured on fellow Seattle-based du ...

, released in 2012, as the fourth single from the former's debut studio album, '' The Heist'' (2012). The lyrics tell of Macklemore's esteem for going to 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 Social criticism is a form of academic or journalistic criticism focusing on social issues in contemporary society, in respect to perceived injustices and Power (social and political), power relations in general. Social criticism of the Enlighte ...

. 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 and medium-sized enterprise, small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels ...

with distribution by the Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA), a

Warner Music Group Warner Music Group Corp., commonly abbreviated as WMG, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational entertainment and record label Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the "Record label#M ...

company, the single was a

sleeper hit In the entertainment industry, a sleeper hit refers to a film, television series, music release, video game or other entertainment product that was initially unsuccessful on release, but eventually became a surprise success. A sleeper hit may have ...

. 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 advertis ...

'' and in 2019, it was named by ''Billboard'' as the number one song of the 2010s on both the

Hot Rap Songs Hot Rap Songs (formerly known as Hot Rap Tracks and Hot Rap Singles) is a chart released weekly by '' Billboard'' in the United States. It lists the 25 most popular hip-hop/rap songs, calculated weekly by airplay on rhythmic and urban radio stat ...

and the

Hot 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 ...

charts. A music video was released simultaneously with the song on August 29, 2012, and has more than 1.9 billion views on YouTube as of February 2025. 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 co ...

in 2014, the single won for Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song.

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 strong-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 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." Macklemore stated that the message he was trying to send with that song was: "Don't be a fuckboy and think that a logo is going to make you cool. There are finds out there. There are treasures. There are amazing ways that you can freak fashion and be an individual, and we don't need to get caught up spending all this money. Save it. Go to the thrift shop." "Thrift Shop" is written in the key of

G minor G minor is a minor scale based on G, consisting of the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has two flats. Its relative major is B-flat major and its parallel major is G major. The G natural minor scale is: Changes n ...

and has a

tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for 'time'; plural 'tempos', or from the Italian plural), measured in beats per minute, is the speed or pace of a given musical composition, composition, and is often also an indication of the composition ...

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 t ...

common in modern

, but ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' 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 initial launch in 1999, Digital Spy has focused on entertainment news related to television pro ...

'' gave the song 5 out of 5 stars, calling it "a rare beast of a song – original, musically daring and genuinely funny." ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...

'' named the song as the 18th best single of 2012. The song was number 1 in the

Triple J Triple J is an Australian government-funded national radio station founded in 1975 as a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). It aims to appeal to young listeners of alternative music, and plays far more Australian conten ...

Hottest 100 countdown of 2012. In 2022, ''

American Songwriter ''American Songwriter'' is a bimonthly magazine covering songwriting. Established in 1984, it features interviews, songwriting tips, news, reviews and lyric contest. The magazine is based in Nashville, Tennessee. History The ''American Songwri ...

'' 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 five weeks later on October 20. 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 Hot Rap Songs (formerly known as Hot Rap Tracks and Hot Rap Singles) is a chart released weekly by ''Billboard'' in the United States. It lists the 25 most popular hip-hop/rap songs, calculated weekly by airplay on rhythmic and urban radio statio ...

chart for fifteen weeks. "Thrift Shop" was the second best-selling single of 2013 in the US after

Robin Thicke Robin Alan Thicke (born March 10, 1977) is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known for his 2013 single " Blurred Lines" (featuring T.I. and Pharrell Williams), which peaked atop the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, received ...

's "

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

", 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-best selling digital single in the country ever. The song also had much success on ''Billboard'''s component charts, remaining atop the

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

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 the 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 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 "We Are the World 25 for Haiti" is a charity single recorded by the supergroup (music), supergroup Artists for Haiti in 2010. It is a remake of the song "We Are the World", which was written by American musicians Michael Jackson and Lionel Rich ...

" 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 Lisa Anne Loeb (; born March 11, 1968) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author and actress. She started her career with " Stay (I Missed You)" from the film '' Reality Bites'', the first number-one single on the ''Billboard'' Hot 10 ...

's " Stay (I Missed You)" 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

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

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), Billboard'' magazine. It was launched on the issue dated March 31, 2007 as the standard record chart in Canada; a new chart ...

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, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Mike Posner, Al ...

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

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, including Goodwill Outlet, Value Village in

Capitol Hill Capitol Hill is a neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., neighborhood in Washington, D.C., located in both the Northeast, Washington, D.C., Northeast and Southeast, Washington, D.C., Southeast quadrants. It is bounded by 14th Street SE & NE, F S ...

, 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 Anthony L. Ray (born August 12, 1963), better known by his stage name Sir Mix-a-Lot or his CB handle Prime Minista, is an American rapper. He is best known for his 1992 hit song " Baby Got Back", which peaked at number one on the ''Billboard'' ...

, 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 ...

for Video of the Year.

In popular culture

Postmodern Jukebox covered the song in 2013, with Robyn Adele Anderson singing in a

Roaring Twenties The Roaring Twenties, sometimes stylized as Roaring '20s, refers to the 1920s decade in music and fashion, as it happened in Western world, Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultura ...

jazz style. The video went viral and boosted the career of Postmodern Jukebox. The video gathered four million views in its first year.

Parodies

The children's show ''

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational television, educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation, and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Worksh ...

'' makes a parody of "Thrift Shop" in which Macklemore appeared playing the character "Mucklemore", shows

Oscar the Grouch Oscar the Grouch is a List of Sesame Street Muppets, 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 Sesame Street (fiction ...

and his other Grouches the proper way to recycle their trash. In 2013, KIDZ BOP covered the song as part of their 24th album. The cover changes much of the original lines, in order to make it appropriate for children to listen to. A parody was part of a Pessach Shop Passover Jam, done for the Jewish holiday of

Passover Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday and one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals. It celebrates the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Biblical Egypt, Egypt. According to the Book of Exodus, God in ...

by the ''

a cappella Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...

'' group Six13. The American comedy artist Rucka Rucka Ali parodied the song twice in his album '' Black Man of Steal''. One of his parodies is titled "I'm Obama", the other, "I'm Osama".

Verizon Wireless Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the div ...

parodied the song in a 2016 holiday promotion, this time in a laundromat. American parody web show "The Hillywood Show" samples the music in its parody of British TV show Sherlock, as well as reenacting some scenes from the music video.

Media

The song was also used in the trailers for the films '' Pain & Gain'', '' The Internship'' and '' Tammy''.

"Weird Al" Yankovic Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic ( ; born October 23, 1959) is an American comedy musician, writer, and actor. He is best known for writing and performing Comedy music, comedy songs that often Parody music, parody specific songs by contempo ...

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'' is the fourteenth and possible final studio album by the American parody musician "Weird Al" Yankovic. The self-produced album was released by RCA Records in the United States on July 15, 2014. Yankovic had previously released '' ...

''.''Mandatory Fun'' liner notes In 2018, a slightly modified version of the original song was also used for

Suncorp Suncorp Group Limited, known simply as Suncorp, is an Australian finance, insurance and banking corporation based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was formed on 1 December 1996 by the merger of Suncorp, Metway Bank and the Queensland Ind ...

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 Ryan Scott Lewis (born March 25, 1988) is an American musician and record producer based in Seattle, Washington. Along with producing his own album, ''Instrumentals'', Lewis produced the albums ''The VS. EP'' (2009), '' The Heist'' (2012), and ...

– production *

Macklemore Benjamin Hammond Haggerty (born June 19, 1983), better known by his stage name Macklemore ( ; formerly Professor Macklemore), is an American rapper. A native of Seattle, Washington, he started his career in 2000 as an independent artist rele ...

– vocals, writing * DV One – scratches * Brooklyn Grinnell – vocals *

– vocals

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Decade-end charts

All-time charts

Certifications

References