Nothin’ on You, Fuck You, When I Was Your Man, Locked Out of Heaven, Treasure, 24K Magic, Grenade, Finesse, That’s What I Like, Uptown Funk
Peter Hernandez grew up idolising Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley. When he teamed up with songwriter and entertainer Philip Lawrence and producer Ari Levine, the trio would boast of writing a smash, a ‘smeeze’, a ‘smeezington’. The name stuck and The Smeezingtons was the credit on the likes of Fuck You by Cee-Lo Green and Nothin’ on You: on the latter, Bruno sang the hook, drawing out his vowels on ‘girls’ and ‘world’, and B.o.B did a rap in which he praised his beloved for paying her taxes and being ‘the whole package’. It was a massive number one at the very beginning of the decade.
By 2013 the trio were one of the top producers in pop music, behind only Jeff Bhasker and Ryan Lewis and ahead of even Max Martin and Shellback, according to Billboard magazine. Their style took the best of funk, soul, r’n’b and pop, as evidenced on their enormous hits this decade.
Fuck You, or Forget You as the radio edit had, is a monster song. Cee-Lo ‘can’t afford a Ferrari’ and has been ‘hurt so bad’. The middle eight, where Cee-Lo moans ‘why?!’ three times, is the climax of the song (‘I still LOVE YOU!’) while the chorus is a mix of anger and sugar (‘hoo hoo HOO!’)
Grenade, from Bruno’s debut album Doo Wops and Hooligans, is a song I love. Bruno would do anything – catch a grenade, leap in front of a train, take a bullet through his brain – but his girl would do nothing. He’s a fool but the middle eight is extraordinary, probably Bruno’s best, ending in that ‘NEVER! NEVER!’ lyrical hook.
Locked Out of Heaven, the lead single from 2012’s Unorthodox Jukebox, is a monster too with a great and quotable title. ‘Your sex takes me to paradise’ is the bridge, while the chorus has those long held notes beloved of karaoke singers. Then there’s the intro, which doubles as the post-chorus (‘ah yeah yeah…oom!’).
Treasure was even better, an irresistible bit of pop, produced immaculately, with the perfect blend of funky guitar, soulful and syncopated delivery and a heck of a chorus: ‘Treasure! That is what you are!’ I realise a lot of these lyrics have exclamation marks after them, because that is how the song suggests they are to be transcribed.
When I Was Your Man – a song whose lyrics don’t come with exclamation marks but the dabbing away of tears – took Bruno’s mournful vocal and added a gentle piano line full of soulful chords. Often if a song becomes a hit you get ten worse ones entering the charts that ride its coattails (as with Adele’s Someone Like You), but I love the tenderness of Bruno’s delivery as he remembers dancing and being with the girl whom he has lost.
24K Magic was album three, released in 2016, and the title track became the lead single. The production is even better, though it is now Jeff Bhasker who hops on to the board to twiddle some knobs on the album. He didn’t work on the title track, which is credited to Shampoo Press & Curl, the moniker of Mars, Lawrence and newcomer Christopher Brody Brown. As with Locked Out of Heaven, the fun video was directed by Cameron Duddy, who spent the end of the decade in fake country band Midland.
24K Magic the song became the GRAMMY Record of the Year, which is awarded on the production and sound of a song: it takes elements of funk, disco, soul and r’n’b and sonically namechecks the likes of Zapp & Roger, Jam & Lewis and Chic. It’s basically the black American sound in four minutes with Bruno pratting on about how ‘so many pretty girls around me and they’re waking up the rocket!’. The lyrical hook of ‘pinkie finger to the moon!’ is fun, and the chorus has an irresistible synth(!) hook. It’s 24K hooks!!
Then came the second single from the album, That’s What I Like, the GRAMMY Song of the Year from the GRAMMY Album of the Year. 1.5bn Youtube viewers can’t be wrong. It helped Mars join Jewel and Ed Sheeran as an act who had two songs in the Hot 100 top ten for over half a year. That’s What I Like was ranked third in 2017’s Year-End chart, behind only Shape of You and Despacito. That’s what his accountant likes!!
I’ll note the remix of Finesse, which is a homage to the musical style known as New Jack Swing, pioneered by Teddy Riley in the 1980s. Cardi B, the most successful female rapper of the current era, adds a verse about her ‘money dance’ before Bruno sings about how ‘they don’t make no scent’ called Finesse. The middle eight, as is characteristic of Bruno’s work, is brilliant, as he exhorts the men to grab their lady and vice versa. Musically and in the production, Finesse is terrific and a good time party song to rival those of Prince’s band The Time (who once counted Jam and Lewis among their ranks) and any number of funk bands from the golden era.
Uptown Funk, meanwhile, was the monster of monsters.
Mark Ronson spent months fine-tuning the guitar part, which was given the blessing of his friend Nile Rodgers. Mark had risen to prominence in the mid-2000s with his album Version, taking songs like Valerie and Stop Me and bending them into new shapes with the assistance of the Dap Horns. He then worked magic with Amy Winehouse, whose album Back to Black was produced by Mark and again featured those horns.
Nobody could have predicted the success of Uptown Funk, which draws inspiration from Oops Up Side Your Head for its final few minutes. Jeff Bhasker helped write and produce it. The reason it works is because you can clap along to the beat, dance during the chorus (‘Don’t believe me? Just watch!’) and sing any number of lyrical hooks: ‘Michelle Pfieffer, that white gold!’, ‘stylin’, wildin’, ‘gotta kiss myself I’m so pretty!’, ‘too hot, hot damn!’, ‘call the police and the fireman!’, ‘make a dragon wanna retire!’, ‘stop! Wait a minute!’, ‘Julio! Get the stretch!’, ‘Harlem! Hollywood! Jackson Mississippi!’, ‘smoother than a fresh jar of Skippy!’ and ‘uptown funk you up!’ are 11 of them, again with the trademark Martian Exclamation Point.
As for the music, it is grounded by a bass voice scatting, as heard at the start of the song. The layers of gang vocals in unison match the harmony of the horns and guitar, with an infectious funk stab in the chorus. The last minute is pure joy as uptown funks you up, with Bruno playing the entertainer.
There’s an extraordinary performance of the song on Saturday Night Live from the end of 2014, two weeks after its release, which remains my favourite reading of the song and could conceivably go on for 20 minutes like some kind of James Brown wig-out. Seven weeks at the top of the UK charts and 14 on top in America makes it one of the most successful songs ever; only three songs have a bigger run at the top of the Hot 100, and one of them is the awful I Gotta Feeling by The Black Eyed Peas.
The video is another Cameron Duddy production, with Bruno and his mates dossing around outdoors, creeping up to a low camera for the ‘Too hot, hot damn!’ parts. Only three music videos have been viewed more times on Youtube: Despacito, Shape of You and See You Again. Uptown Funk even overtook Gangnam Style, though Baby Shark is hot on its heels.
In any reasonable review of the 2010s, Bruno Mars looms large.