You’re never going to believe it, but the new Bruno Mars sounds like a new Bruno Mars song. Mars is a fascinating figure: An A-list pop superstar who evidently has nothing to say. It’s been, what, nine and a half years since his last solo album? But he’s kept himself in the conversation, occasionally popping up with a gigantic hit duet, often a pop artist who needs a gigantic hit. This year, he’s finally coming back with a new album, The Romantic, and a massive stadium tour. When he finally drops the lead single, it’s a perfectly solid, impeccably crafted easy-breezy ’70s/’80s-style soul-pop pastiche about how, ooh girl, he really likes the way you look. This guy is an insane talent, and he could be a pop auteur if he wanted. Instead, this is what he wants to be.
Bruno Mars’ discography is remarkably small. Over the course of nearly 20 years, he has thus far released three solo albums, along with sundry collaborations and loose singles and that one Silk Sonic record. All of his albums are short, and it looks like The Romantic will follow suit. The streaming tracklist for The Romantic only includes nine songs, and his recent hits with Lady Gaga, ROSÉ, and Sexyy Red are not on it. Instead, I would anticipate a few different slight variations on the long-established formula that you can hear at work on his new song “I Just Might.”
“I Just Might” is just fine. It’s got hooks and energy, and all of its percussion ripples and chicken-scratch guitars and horn-stabs are in the right places. The message of the song is that Bruno Mars thinks you’re very pretty and he really hopes that you know how to dance: “May I just say that your face got me so intrigued?/ But what good is beauty if your booty can’t find a beat?” If the song become mega-popular, which it is clearly engineered to do, many of us are going to get really tired of that doot-doot-doot chorus.
Bruno Mars co-produced “I Just Might” with regular collaborator D’Mile, and the two of them co-wrote it with Philip Lawrence and Brody Brown, two more longtime Bruno Mars guys. (Once upon a time, Mars and Lawrence were two thirds of the unfortunately monikered production team the Smeezingtons.) The “I Just Might” video, which Mars co-directed with Daniel Ramos, does the standard “Hey Ya!” thing, where it’s a band of nothing but Bruno Marses playing in a lavishly appointed lounge. As ever, he’s fun to watch, though I like it better when he’s got his actual friends behind him, not his clones.
The “I Just Might” video isn’t that much like “Hey Ya!” because Mars doesn’t come up with different personas for all those Bruno Marses. It’s just five of the same guy, mostly dressed the same, grooving hard and showing sleek dance moves. The metaphor might as well run you over with a steamroller: It’s just more of this guy. Might as well get used to it now. It’s below.
The Romantic is out 2/27 on Atlantic.
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