Bruno Mars

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Essential Albums

  • Unorthodox Jukebox
    Unorthodox Jukebox
    Unorthodox Jukebox

    Heading into Unorthodox Jukebox, Bruno Mars was already launching a total takeover of the pop planet. As a member of The Smeezingtons—a writing-production trio that also included Philip Lawrence and Ari Levine—Mars played a crucial role in the 2010 successes of CeeLo Green’s “Fuck You”, Travie McCoy’s “Billionaire” and B.o.B.’s “Nothin’ on You”. That same year came his debut album, Doo-Wops & Hooligans, which featured the chart-topping singles “Just the Way You Are” and “Grenade”. Though only in his mid-twenties, Mars already had the kind of career year most artists would never be able to beat. Still, it wasn’t until the 2012 release of Unorthodox Jukebox that it became clear Mars had the makings of a future Super Bowl headliner. The 10-track album, clocking in at a concise 35 minutes, wasn’t just a pop blockbuster—it was a superstar-making statement. And while Unorthodox Jukebox begins and ends with the doo-wop stylings Mars employed on his debut—on “Young Girls” and “If I Knew”, respectively—the album represents a style-hopping leap forward, featuring everything from reggae-pop (the Police-indebted smash “Locked Out of Heaven”) to soul-baring balladry (the chart-topping “When I Was Your Man”) to roller-skating R&B (the sparkling “Treasure”). On Jukebox jams like “When I Was Your Man”, you can also hear Mars growing as a singer, one who’s confident enough to flex his vocals backed only by his own piano—with nowhere to hide. The album also finds Mars making some unorthodox choices with his lyrics, which are occasionally riskier (and more risqué). There’s sex, drugs and alcohol mixing into the Princely allegories of “Gorilla” and “Moonshine”, while “Natalie” and “Money Make Her Smile” reveal the baller paranoia of a man who’s no longer the romantic innocent of his breakout single, “Just the Way You Are”.

  • Doo-Wops & Hooligans (Deluxe)
    Doo-Wops & Hooligans (Deluxe)
    Doo-Wops & Hooligans (Deluxe)

    The early 2010s were a time when the veils between genres—pop, R&B, rock, dance music, even reggae—were delightfully thin. Coldplay teamed up with Rihanna, who in turn collaborated with Britney Spears (and Slash, too). Meanwhile, Maroon 5 embraced electro-pop and Adele carried the torch for timeless soul. But perhaps no star embodied the zeitgeist more thoroughly—or audaciously—than Bruno Mars, whose 2010 debut, Doo-Wops & Hooligans, became a breakout hit thanks to a panoramic sound that, if it doesn’t encompass every genre under the sun, surely sounds like it. Despite the hook-filled Doo-Wops & Hooligans representing his first stab at recording a full-length album, Mars was no novice when it came to busting down walls between genres. The versatile child-entertainer-turned-in-demand-songwriter had already racked up composer credits for artists as diverse as Brandy, Natasha Bedingfield and Cobra Starship before he and his production team, The Smeezingtons, started constructing the ambitious album, including a lead single, “Just the Way You Are”, that alone took months to hone. All the hard work paid off. The song’s effortless blend of puppy-love innocence, funky syncopation and a Coldplay-style chorus helped it become one of the biggest hits of 2010, eventually netting Mars a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Both “Talking to the Moon” and “Marry You” reach similarly soaring heights, showing Mars’ facility as a straight-ahead rocker with an ear for melody. But as the delicious slice of lovers rock “Our First Time” and the soul-folk gem “The Other Side” demonstrate, he's far too curious musically to stick to a single genre, a quality that would steer his subsequent solo releases as well as his work with Silk Sonic, his lush and dreamy supergroup with Anderson .Paak. Mars’ nostalgic streak—the Hawaii native grew up playing oldies, after all—is yet another key flavour in Doo-Wops & Hooligans. But instead of taking centre stage, as it would on 2012’s Unorthodox Jukebox (an album that unfolds like a turbo-charged crash course in pop-music appreciation 101), Mars deploys his love of vintage sounds strategically. There’s the old-school R&B swing fuelling “Runaway Baby” and the Beatles-esque melody threaded through the romantic ditty “Count on Me”. Moreover, his voice consistently reveals inflections learned from spinning Thriller over and over. Ultimately, though, Mars isn’t time travelling on Doo-Wops & Hooligans so much as scattering Easter eggs to let listeners know his knowledge of music history is deep and wide.

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About Bruno Mars

Bruno Mars has a good story about Prince: Mars is hanging out at an awards show, during a commercial break. The crowd is filled with celebrities. Suddenly, Mars feels the room shift, people part, and there he is, Mars told Apple Music in a 2016 interview—Prince, “just floating by, levitating by.” Prince catches Mars’ eye and gives him a thumbs-up, and Mars—stunned—gives Prince a thumbs-up back. “And that’s it,” Mars said. “What more can you ask?” More than a Prince co-sign? How about a stack of multi-platinum records? The privilege of being able to entertain people the world over? Mars has those too. But you get the sense that the nod from Prince was affirmation of a higher order. Even when he was living on instant ramen noodles and trying to find his way into the industry, Mars knew he didn’t just want to be a songwriter or a singer or a producer, but—like Prince, or maybe Michael Jackson—a total pop package, the kind of artist who’s as powerful in the studio as they are onstage. Those records, though: “Uptown Funk”, “Locked Out of Heaven”, “That’s What I Like”. Fun, omnivorous, generation-bridging. The kind of stuff that Mom will be pulling you onto the dance floor for. Mars could do old-fashioned showmanship, could credibly play the crooner with a live band to boot. But he also had an ear for hip-hop and R&B, could—like all great pop—collapse the distance between then and now, Black music and white. Most of all, he knew how much retro was retro enough: Music that made you think about the past, not pine for it. Born Peter Hernandez in Honolulu in 1985, Mars took the stage early, famously doing Elvis impersonations with a family revue at a local hotel before he even hit kindergarten. (In one formative moment, young Mars wet his jumpsuit during “Can’t Help Falling In Love”, but finished without flinching.) As a teenager, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a deal with Motown Records. The deal went nowhere, but Mars kept himself afloat by writing and producing with a team called The Smeezingtons, which he helped found. In 2010, he released his debut, Doo-Wops & Hooligans. By 2012’s Unorthodox Jukebox, the image had gotten a little grittier, the sound a little more diverse and the retro affectations—goodbye, pompadour—a little less pronounced. Leaning on the slick bounce of ’80s and ’90s funk and R&B, 24K Magic followed in 2016, sweeping its nominations at the Grammys. A confessed perfectionist, Mars pushes on. “All the statues or Time magazine—that s**t is beautiful and made my parents and my family proud and all that,” he told Apple Music. “But there’s this battle within—that you always wanna. You got this fighter’s spirit. I still feel like I’m chasing to prove something to myself, that I got a better song in me.”

BORN
8 October 1985
GENRE
Pop

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