If giving the people what they want is a crime, you’re going to have to throw Bruno Mars in populism jail. Music is full of romantics, but only Bruno is so on-the-nose about his heart-on-sleeve intentions — and his ace showman’s ability to pull them off — that he’d actually call his record The Romantic. His new LP is his first new music since 2021’s An Evening With Silk Sonic, the throwback R&B duo with Anderson .Paak, and it’s his first as a solo act since 2016’s massive 24K Magic. A lot has happened in the decade since that album gifted us with hits like “That’s What I Like” and “Versace on the Floor,” and on The Romantic, Bruno is here to argue that his precision-tuned retro-pop vision is timeless and endearing in any moment.
Mars has been on a roll lately thanks to chart-topping mega smashes “APT” with Rosé and “Die With a Smile” with Lady Gaga. Like clockwork, “I Just Might,” the lead single off The Romantic, went Number One, too. It’s dance-the-night-away bubblegum fun, steeped in the Seventies disco classics of KC & the Sunshine Band and Hot Chocolate. Bruno poses the vexing metaphysical conundrum, “What good is beauty if your booty can’t find the beat?” It’s about as philosophical as this man gets, and in the often overly pretentious climate of pop music these days, that’s a welcome intellectual space for him to claim.
That roller-boogie banger turns out to be the lone sugar-rush moment on the album. True to its title, most of The Romantic finds Bruno crooning big, flower-bearing ballads – “I would run through a fire just to be by your side,” he entreats on “Risk It All,” a lush acoustic valentine influenced by Cuban bolero music. And that’s one of the more subtle passages. Where 24K Magic was mostly an Eighties nostalgia trip, this time out Mars dials it back to 1970s soul, pretty close to the music he did with .Paak on the Silk Sonic LP. If someone just broke into your house and stole all your Marvin Gaye and War records, this will be just the right thing to get you through your time of loss.
“Cha Cha Cha” and “Something Serious” see Mars celebrating the rich grooves and sweet crooning of the Latin-R&B style that got dubbed “brown-eyed soul,” which bloomed in Southern California during the late Sixties and early Seventies — the latter tune oye-como-va-ing down the street in low-riding splendor. On “God Was Showing Off” the band counts off in Spanish and leaps into a lavish ballad performance as Bruno bands the knee before his miracle girl. “Oh My Soul” shoots some Ernie Isley laser-beam guitar over a tight, conga-driven groove as Bruno effortlessly kicks it in falsetto heaven.
These gestures are a nice nod to Mars’ Puerto Rican background and a clever way to revive the super sounds of the Seventies in a style that’s in step with the way Latin pop has become such a vital part of today’s musical mainstream. Considering the popularity of Bruno’s almost unrivaled position on the fifty yard line of American popular taste, it’s even a little political, too.
He closes it out with two slow ones, “Nothing Left” and “Dance With Me,” the former a towering heartsick vocal performance, the latter a sweet Motown slow dance about rekindling a flickering relationship. All of these old-school moves are impeccably rendered. Mars is the kind of guy who goes out of his way to research which conga drum heads got used in specific Curtis Mayfield sessions so he can get the exact right period vibe.
And his singing and emotional commitment are delivered with slam-dunk energy, like every tune is the huge showstopper during his last concert ever. Why complicate things? This is an undeniable half hour of deeply felt music designed to please the people, and educate us all a little, too.
