When we last saw Bruno Mars, he was putting a year-ending shine on The Pinky Ring, blasting through a hard-rock set that ended at about 2 a.m.
Mars said that night to look for something big in the first week of the year. Monday he followed through with a cryptic-yet-significant, announcement, “My album is done.”
No date attached. His new single is rumored to be out Friday. The promotion is likely to line up with the Grammy Awards, set for Feb. 1 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
And be ready for Mars to announce a stadium tour for ’26. Such a series would likely mean the earliest he would be back at Dolby Live would be NEXT New Year’s Eve.
By the time Mars took to X (a platform he uses only occasionally), we’d already endorsed the concept of a live album out of The Pinky Ring. An album of a show similar to his New Year’s Eve performance (“Whole Lotta Love,” “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Seven Nation Army”) would top the charts in about 12 minutes.
I envision a type of “Sinatra at the Sands” release, capturing not just a show but a moment in time. Maybe someday, but not today.
What the year-opening developments indicate is there will be less of Mars in Vegas in ’26. More of Mars worldwide. The new album is his first solo effort since the 2016 “24K Magic,” which won six Grammys and produced the title hit and also “That’s What I Like.”
Mars’ latest full-scale album was the the 2021 “An Evening with Silk Sonic” adventure with Anderson .Paak. That album also crushed it at the Grammys, and sparked the enormously successful Silk Sonic residency run at Dolby Live. You could have turned the entire property into a Silk Sonic-themed resort. Mars has played 100-plus dates at the venue, but it’s likely we won’t see him there again until the end of the year.
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.
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