Four years ago there were few pop artists less likely to draw my attention than Bruno Mars. At least in terms of the material he was putting on his own albums, the kind of music he was producing was the kind of overly slick, overly sappy nonsense that is guaranteed to make even the most rigid of attention spans go completely flaccid... mine included.
Of course, there was one notable exception in Bruno's repertoire, the infectious, Michael Jackson infused "Treasure" a track that had no business being on the same album as trite filler like "Gorilla" and "When I Was Your Man"; two songs that received far more radio play, unfortunately. "Treasure" pointed out a very important fact; Mars is at his best when he is trying to replicate older forms of pop, this fact was given even more evidence when the track "Uptown Funk" dominated the charts in 2015, and at that point, Bruno seemed to realize the power that he possessed. So, with a full band in tow, Bruno got to work; the result, 24k Magic, an album that I wholeheartedly love from top to bottom.
Simply put, everything that I liked about "Treasure" and "Uptown Funk" has been refined and amped up on this LP. The 9 tracks on offer here are tight, catchy, and pay homage to key artists in pop, R&B, and funk, but almost never come off as mere imitation, save for "Perm" where the James Brown influence takes over completely; still a good tune though. My favorite moments however come in the form of three key tracks, "24k Magic" is synth-funk perfection that is an absolute jam, I'd be surprised if doesn't get as much attention as "Uptown Funk" did. Then we have the slow jam masterwork "Versace on the Floor", a track I wasn't able to embrace fully, until I let my cynicism guard down and then there's "Finesse", an honest-to-God revival of new jack swing that is a distilled version of all the positive qualities of that entire genre.
Of course, there are other great tracks here, "Straight Up & Down" is a sexy little number and "Calling All My Lovlies" is a hilarious track about a girl who is ignoring Bruno, the track even ends by revealing the girl in question... a pretty great reveal in my opinion.
If there's one truly weak aspect of this album, it would have to be the lack of variety in song topic, but honestly, this is an album that is mostly paying homage to various R&B sounds from the past 30 years, so I can't really fault most of the tracks for being about love, being a ladies man and sex. However, another track or two would have been appreciated, because 33 minutes is a bit brief.
Regardless, this is hands down my pop album of the year, and I highly recommend that you give it a listen, even if (like me) most of Bruno's back catalog makes you wince.
9.0/10
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