Return of the Mack, you knew that he’d be back.

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[4.78]

Rebecca A. Gowns: This is the best Macklemore song I’ve heard!
[2]

Anthony Easton: Look, I hate the tourism of Macklemore — I hate the straight boys co-opting the most obvious of gay fights for progressive points, and the relationship of “Thrift Shop”‘ to people who are genuinely poor is completely fucked up. The dude is a smug bastard, making an earnest, sweet, hip-hop your momma could love, and this is equally as smug as before. He believes his hype. The chorus is entirely constructed to be an interstitial song for a heartwarming episode of Glee. But, earnest gets its points. The chorus is fantastic, and I could imagine yelling it on a dance floor.
[7]

Brad Shoup: I’ve known about this song for months — how? Promo for a TV show? TV channel? How did it happen? To be fair, I only recognize the EDM patter of the chorus, if you don’t count the shittiest horn section imaginable playing “Make It Rain”. Xeroxed percussion and cribbed structure from K. West complete the business plan. As for Macklemore, the usual: lyrics-by-Buzzfeed-committee and and an IOU for breath control.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: One side of the Venn diagram is labelled “frat-boy goofball,” the other “well-meaning but misguided guy.” The middle says “Macklemore”. His most prominent singles so far have been on one of those ends, and they suffer from his groaners (“Thrift Shop”) or his after-school sermons (“One Love,” “Wings”). “Can’t Hold Us” plots somewhere outside any of those circles, just a driving beat, some leftover Kanye Auto-Tune and Macklemore showing off his rapping skills. His jokes still aren’t good, but they don’t suck, and the way this song barrels forward makes sure he always has to be on his toes. His little 808s And Heartbreak outro is completely unnecessary, but everything before it is fine. Turns out Macklemore is at his best when he’s sort of bland. 
[6]

Crystal Leww: I don’t know where to start with this. I have a few points to make, but none of them really relate to one another in the same way that “Can’t Hold Us” doesn’t really make a lot of sense beyond being a bunch of scattered parts that mostly don’t work when you put them together. Here goes: 1) You don’t need to rhyme all the time but you better have a flow good enough or a point to all of your nonsense to pull it off as a rapper. 2) This production jumps rather than grooving or bouncing, and it sounds like it’s trying really hard to mask the problems with Macklemore’s raps and flow. It does not really work. 3) The fact that he is already self-referencing “Thrift Shop” in a dick-waving/crotch-grabbing fashion is my nightmare come true. 4) The line “that’s what you get when Wu-Tang raised you” makes Macklemore sound like the worst kind of rap snob who wants to save rap from itself, to revive the good old days. 5) Apparently, we’ve all been pronouncing “Macklemore” wrong. 6) I hope that Ray Dalton gets all the royalties for this song because I am really tired of these corny white dudes profiting off their more talented black backup musicians. 7) If I have to hear this all summer, I will probably cry a lot. 
[1]

Will Adams: Here’s what will elevate Macklemore & Ryan Lewis beyond “fuckin’ awesome” meme-ry. A serviceable hook kissed with Ray Dalton’s smooth vocal; a bustling instrumental with horns, handclaps and piano chords layered with trance synths; and a charged delivery. Mack slips up a bit, his flow drifting in and out of time, but his joy is palpable. No doubt the success of those other songs will inspire him to say more Important Things, but here’s hoping “Can’t Hold Us” reminds him that inoffensive party music works just as well, if not better.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are a duo, but nobody seems to talk about the latter. He’s very good at what he does, creating a generic feelgood party jam here. Generic doesn’t mean bad, and Ray Dalton’s chorus is rousing in a slightly-above-average way. Mackelmore is just average here, the references to Mark Morrison and Kanye make me cringe, his rapid-fire syllables don’t particularly impress and nothing about his rhymes are special. But none of this is bad — like “Thrift Shop,” I hate the idea of it, but in a club setting I would find enough here to dance and sing along to. Together, Mack and Ryan are always going to be oscillating wildly between inspired and terrible. Where the good outweights the bad, it’s worth acknowledging.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: Why is it, I wonder, that I’d be so much more kindly disposed to this song if the hook singer were a woman?
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: The ceiling doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere; Ray Dalton sounds half asleep for the most part, and Macklemore – MC Miker G for the Snapchat generation – could be banging on about The Price Is Right for all that it matters, providing as he does little more than audio wallpaper. There’s something in the chorus though, and the production is great, but everything else only serves to dull proceedings.
[6]