After all the blood, sweat, and tears that Ryan Lewis and Ben Haggerty have put into countless hours, they’re ready to present their latest masterpiece The Heist.
The independently released album "The Heist" brings out a new sound to hip-hop. Artwork by Ryan Woods
The night of October 8th was the night a lifelong goal was achieved by Ben Haggerty and Ryan Lewis. The release date for The Heist (a hip-hop style music) has produced the highest record sales in history for the unsigned artists. The two were able to maintain the top album on iTunes for several days, due to a strong and continuously growing fan base. Their music sounds like nothing else available in the hip-hop community and mixes instruments with generically produced sounds to create on of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time.
The album cover and insides of The Heist were designed to reconnect music and those who create it with the fans. The album cover is wrapped in black alligator skin and has golden lettering for the name of the album, The Heist, the songs, and the artists that created it (Macklemore and Ryan Lewis). On the inside (underneath the gold foil) are 18 pieces of art for each song. Some are photos, paintings, and drawings, and others are digitally created. On the back of each of these, all the artists who have been a part of that song and those who helped produce it are present. This CD has truly unique qualities to it that make it stand out significantly from the others.
The first song on the album is Ten Thousand Hours. In this song Macklemore (AKA Ben Haggerty) raps about all of the struggles he has been through to put this album together and how all of the time and dedication he has put into his craft has all been funneled into this one album. This song is very good and serves as a great opening song for catching the attention of the listener. However, this album will have no difficulty snatching attention, regardless of the song.
Another song on the album that effortlessly caught my interest was Jimmy Iovine. This song is driving, aggressive, and explodes with gusto. The song sounds very hostile towards the music industry and has many different instruments and electrically generated sounds. It is about Haggerty breaking into a record company and trying to trick his way into fame. However, he discovers that they utterly take advantage of artists not only financially but creatively to boot. This song is great and is one of the greatest songs on the album that displays the fact that Haggerty and Lewis are unsigned artists and are extremely proud of that fact.
Finally, an additional song that truly stitches this album together is Starting Over. This is a story of how Ben relapses after being sober and is going through depression because he has so many people looking up to him as an example for becoming sober. He realizes that if he can be an example for becoming sober, he can set an example for those who are trying to start back over. Thus the title of the song was formed. This song is very inspiring and is a bit more dramatic. The sound is a bit depressing but also inspiring with a mixture of piano and bass to accompany the sad tone. None the less, this shows how Macklemore has developed into a sober and successful artist through this jaw-dropping album that has exceeded everyone’s expectations.
Overall this album is nothing short of astonishing. Their hours of drudgery piecing this album together has sling-shotted them into a position that Ben and Lewis could have only dreamed of. This album deserves every bit of respect for music-goers worldwide.
Rating: ★★★★★
