Bruno Mars/Smeezingtons singles poll

also seeing as ronson is usually just a bit bland and tasteful (tho he has always had a good pop ear), the fact this is pretty ballsy surprised me.

i personally could have done without him using the b-word but thats just cos it means i cant play a song like this with my nephew.

can't wait for the kidzbop version, sure to be fire

i like "Uptown Funk" and think it's pretty well done, but i kinda feel like there's a fast approaching expiration date on it being enjoyable at all as it seeps into every movie trailer and completely saturates pop culture

Wow, that was a lot of negativity to sift through before I found something actually intelligent.

1 Several female people I know focus on Bruno Mars' doo-wop voice and old-school trappings (vocal harmonies, dancing, hair) and see him as more original than, say, the average person on ILX or this thread

2 I have seen people actively angry at him for these things here, don't know what's different between the way he does this and say the retro thing of Raphael Saadiq / Janelle Monae / etc.

3 People also seem hurt that he is a very successful singer and songwriter and producer; I don't care if people don't like his songs -- I obv don't mind a few of them and actively like others -- but are we really going back to days of "fuck that guy he's a sellout" or "authenticity check" or the like?

4 I would hope people (and esp that tall drink of water some dude) wd know the minor facetiousness of my earlier comment about America but I still don't know if this is actively not liking the song or passively being pissed about success of said song

5 Repeat point 4 except substitute "Bruno Mars" for "the song"
― Display Name (this cannot be changed):, Thursday, 23 February 2012 18:11 (2 years ago) Permalink

honestly if you dont like uptown funk you prob just dont like funk, or cant bring yourself to admit that bruno mars can actually get funky in a convincing way. sure its kinda pastiche but its better than around 85% of dre3000s funk pastiches, and well funk is hard to do well in 2015 so i take my hat off to him and ronson. the first time i heard it i did think 'wow, this sounds like about 5 diff songs bolted together' but the more i hear it, i hear less joins, and just hear a superb funk record, albeit one that could have come out in 1982 and not been much different. i personally could have done without him using the b-word but thats just cos it means i cant play a song like this with my nephew. anyway, the bassline on uptown funk is more memorable than any bassline on black messiah (and i LOVE that album) in terms of retro-ish funk in 2015 (even if they are referencing quite diff periods). bruno mars actually makes me think of what van hunt would have liked to be, if van hunt didnt mind cribbing from old famous hits, and if he could write more songs that are as immediate and catchy as old famous hits.
― StillAdvance, Sunday, 18 January 2015 11:23 (2 days ago) Permalink

i like "Uptown Funk" and think it's pretty well done, but i kinda feel like there's a fast approaching expiration date on it being enjoyable at all as it seeps into every movie trailer and completely saturates pop culture

― some dude, Sunday, 18 January 2015 13:54 (2 days ago) Permalink

Bruno Mars is a talented songwriter (if you don't agree then just admit you don't like pop and be okay with it, it's really not a big deal) and an impressive fucking performer (e.g. Superbowl Halftime 2014, he fucking killed it--that's when I knew he was going to really do something big in his career, don't believe me, just watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2i0Bc3f7jk)

See what I did there? Lol I'll stop

i also love the trinidad james thing
― J0rdan S., Wednesday, December 17, 2014 5:06 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha i was about to say that's the worst part
― christmas with the canks (some dude), Wednesday, December 17, 2014 7:44 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark

it bothers me. doesn't look like james received any credit either.

That's ridiculous. Funk music owes it's life to James Brown. You can't bag on Bruno Mars just for being influenced by James Brown and if he wants to mirror his performances after James Brown performances I don't think that's the worst thing in the world. James Brown put on a damn good show. If music isn't supposed to live on in other musicians then tell Kevin Parker he'll never be John Lennon... he hasn't figured it out yet.

.....

Bruno Mars is a talented songwriter (if you don't agree then just admit you don't like pop and be okay with it, it's really not a big deal)

hahahaha fuck off m8

"the worst of these are seriously some of the most atrocious songs of my lifetime"

This resonates. "the Lazy Song", "When I Was Your Man", "Just The Way You Are", "Marry You", "Billionaire" - this is a trail of devastation with few parallels. Mars does actually remind me a bit of Billy Joel, in that he tends to write the kind of songs that one could imagine a really irritatingly precocious 10 year old coming up with and being really pleased with.

is sassarfrasco not only getting trinidad james mixed up with james brown, but mystikal mixed up with bruno mars?

xp to the guy upthread who doesn't like the "language in Uptown Funk: the radio edit says "trick" instead of "bitch" so you can play that version for your nephew (although is a prostitution reference any better than a common meaningless swear word, despite the former somehow being less explicit in our culture?)

IMO Uptown Funk is a bit too knowing for me to enjoy it unconditionally, but it is damn catchy. But the firs time I heard it I was in the car with my mom and she went "ooh I like this, this sounds so 70s" and to me it sounds like thats exactly what Mars and Ronson wanted. I like throwbacks, but such self-conscious, purposeful, targeted throwbacks leave a bad taste in my mouth.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/01/13/uptown_funk_mark_ronson_and_bruno_mars_hit_no_1_on_the_billboard_chart_why.html

That article has more hotlinks than a wikipedia page, wtf

http://f.cl.ly/items/3D2S2i3U2T402p12470T/slate_article.png

http://f.cl.ly/items/0s440i0o3Y113R1z3Z3o/youtube.png

http://f.cl.ly/items/121J3z011k3P2K3z2c3O/itunes.png

http://f.cl.ly/items/2N1E3C2C2f0B0j1k2q0a/spotify.png

lol

lmao

went to Burger King for once and "Grenade" comes on. I like Bruno Mars plenty, whether it's his traditional pop, or 80s throwback funk, but I've always hated this song. but today I figured out why I hate it so much - it's like a middle school love letter that describes all of the sucky things someone would do for the person they loved, and sticking to one rhyme.

I would catch a grenade for ya
I would injure Dwyane Wade for ya
I would talk like Sling Blade for ya
I would buy a Kincaid for ya
I would get shitty grades for ya
I'd subscribe to Parade for ya
I'd lose on Nick Arcade for ya