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We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories
We've Relaunched 🔥 Celebrating 15 Years of Entertainment, Fashion and Viral stories

The Number Ones: Bruno Mars’ “That’s What I Like”

This post originally APPEARED on stereogum.com

Bruno Mars is a machine. I mean that in the figurative sense. Probably. If we eventually learn that Bruno Mars is a liquid metal terminator who’s been sent back in time to make catchy retro hits, I’ll be surprised, but I won’t be shocked. Mars has been ridiculously famous and successful for more than 15 years, and I don’t really know much more about him than I did when he sang the hook on B.o.B.’s “Nothin’ On You.” He doesn’t really look any different, either. Sometimes, his hair will get a little poofier.

Sometimes, he’ll have a little pencil-thin mustache or a slight wardrobe change. But the ravages of time seemingly do not affect Bruno Mars. Little things like artistic development don’t really figure in much, either. Most pop stars want us to know everything about them.

They want to establish elaborate universes and hide little hints about future projects in music-video Easter eggs. They have feuds or friendships or romances with other pop stars. They change up styles to fit the zeitgeist, or sometimes to drive the zeitgeist. They fall off, and sometimes they come back again. None of this applies to Bruno Mars. He’s got a slick, shiny retro-pop sensibility. He’ll tweak it or fine-tune it, but that really only means that he’ll look to different eras for inspiration.

He’ll disappear for years at a time, but he won’t be gone. He’ll just be off on fabulously lucrative global tours or playing fabulously lucrative Las Vegas residencies. He’ll occasionally collaborate with his pop-star peers, but those link-ups always seem like business transactions rather than twin flames converging. He doesn’t put much music out into the world, but if he’s involved with a song, there’s a very good chance that it’ll be a big hit.

I can’t say that I’ve ever been a Bruno Mars fan, but as someone who cares about pop music, I must respect the motherfucking craft. With Mars, the motherfucking craft is all you get. There will be no deep personal communication between you and this man. He won’t help you understand any heavy truths about yourself, but he won’t waste your time, either. On the rare occasions that Bruno Mars releases an album, that album will be a sharp, polished, painstakingly precise piece of party music, and it won’t last much longer than half an hour. As I write this, it’s been a long time since Bruno Mars released a solo album, and I’d started to wonder whether he still has the juice. I don’t wonder that anymore. He’s got it. As I write this, Mars has two songs in the top 20, and one of them keeps threatening to finally push its way to #1. Bet against this man, or perhaps this liquid metal terminator, at your own peril.

If there was ever a moment when Bruno Mars made something resembling an artistic leap, it probably happened late in 2016, when he dropped 24K Magic, his third solo album. (I guess I could say something similar about the record that followed, but that was more of a side-project thing. And anyway, that one turned out to be huge, too.) Mars’ first two albums were genre-agnostic showcases of pure pop songwriting. With 24K Magic, Mars went for something a little more conceptual. He was coming off of the insane success of “Uptown Funk!,” which was technically a Mark Ronson song but which still stands as the peak star moment for Bruno Mars. He must’ve taken that song’s global-smash status as a green light to dig deep into the funk and R&B of the ’80s and ’90s.

At first, it seemed like it might not work. The first single was merely huge rather than colossal. It was the first time that the lead single from a Bruno Mars album didn’t go all the way to #1. The second single started off relatively slowly, but it stuck around for a long time and steadily floated its way to #1 for a single week. Bruno Mars did not have to suffer the indignity of releasing an album without a pop chart-topper. I’m sure he wasn’t sweating it. I’m not convinced that he can sweat.

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