It was a meta pop weekend. Instead of listening to songs, it seemed as if the entire pop world, or at least the entire tweeting pop world, spent the weekend listening to other people talk about a song -- a song which is itself a song about other songs. So mission sort of accomplished for MACKLEMORE, who issued the rambling, introspective, provocative "WHITE PRIVILEGE II" on FRIDAY and inspired a JONAS-sized blizzard of dialog about cultural appropriation, white privilege and #BLACKLIVESMATTER. Not surprisingly, most of that dialog was about MACKLEMORE's cultural appropriation, MACKLEMORE's white privilege and how exactly black lives matter to MACKLEMORE. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Dialog has to start somewhere. Noting the song's clumsy musical borrowings from KENDRICK LAMAR and its use of "THIS AMERICAN LIFE"-like man-on-the-street chatter, COMPLEX's JUSTIN CHARITY proclaimed it "literally the whitest song ever recorded." But he and several other critics found lots worth celebrating, or at least worth thinking about, within the song's eight-and-a-half minutes of self-examination and self-prosecution. MACKLEMORE "is not driving the conversation about race," writes NOISEY's CRAIG JENKINS, but "he is attempting to push an existing dialogue out into territories a 'TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY' can’t reach." In PITCHFORK, KRIS EX cautions that the song "could be a complex play at making himself the protagonist of a story in which he should be the antagonist," but he also hears an artist taking a genuine risk, "an artist leaning on his craft in a moment of confusion; the soundtrack to a man going into the uncomfortable spaces within himself." SEAN NELSON, writing for MACKLEMORE's hometown weekly THE STRANGER, says it's "a mess. But it’s also inspired. But it’s also ludicrous. But it’s also 'brave.' But it’s also craven. But it’s also completely insane." Hardly anyone, it should be noted, liked it as a piece of music... Bonus white-privilege points to IGGY AZALEA for hearing MACKLEMORE processing his own white privilege with the lines "The culture was never yours to make better/You’re MILEY, you’re ELVIS, you’re IGGY AZALEA," and taking it as a personal attack. If I were IGGY, I'd send MACKLEMORE flowers and a note thanking him for comparing me to ELVIS.