How to explain the popularity of "Uptown Funk"?

i hear no EDM or k-Pop in Uptown Funk?

Ambitious, clocking in at 4:30.

It has a million hooks per minute and it mixes old school styles with new school dynamics. The drop into the horns are straight out of the skrillex-schoolbook. Or like Airplane by f(x).

It's basically engineered to make middle-aged people dance and has enough hooks for the kids.

Totally "Crocodile Rock". Crossed with "Groove Is In The Heart".

It has a million hooks per minute and it mixes old school styles with new school dynamics. The drop into the horns are straight out of the skrillex-schoolbook. Or like Airplane by f(x).

― Frederik B, Thursday, March 19, 2015 11:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is EDM's greatest success the fact that people now assume there was no such thing as a drop before 2007?

Yes. By saying basically 'the drop is edm-like' I clearly stated that no other music uses drops. That is what my sentence means.

I was thinking "Let's Dance" crossed with "Nasty."

But it also doesn't remotely resemble the way the drop typically works in EDM tunes.

No, but it uses those sounds. The rising siren and the quickening of drums. Come on, you've heard that sound a million times these last few years, but not in a number one hit like this, I don't think.

I see the resemblance in the build-up, but the trumpet drop itself doesn't work in the same way because EDM (and brostep) both use the drop as the effective chorus and pinnacle of the tune.

Calvin Harris has perfected (or "perfected") this: see "We Found Love" or "Sweet Nothing", the way that the drop into the synths (whether instrumental or with vocals over the top) goes into an extended repeat-arpeggio for at least 8 bars. In EDM (and increasingly, pop generally), the structure could almost be extrapolated from filter-house, the chorus/drop being the section of the tune where the key riff snaps into clear focus.

Whereas in "Uptown Funk" the trumpet drop lasts for 4 bars and then you get the call and response between Bruno and the trumpets/drums before plunging back into the verse.

On computer screen, the above may seem like a trivial distinction ("four bars, eight bars, what's the difference?") but it totally changes the dynamic of the track.

Brostep and EDM are structured around the drop as the focal-point of the tune. In "Uptown Funk" that build-up to the drop and the drop itself are one (or arguably two) dynamic moment(s) amongst many, several of which are of equal prominence - the "i'm too hot / (hot damn)" call and responses in the first pre-chorus, the first "girls hit your hallelujah" which sounds like it's bringing in a breakdown before you realise it's actually presaging a build-up, the actual breakdown with the "Uptown Funk you up" section, etc.

It's that relative equality of peaktime moments that make the tune's use of dynamism (not surprisingly!) resemble Wild Cherry much more than EDM, notwithstanding the presence of a drum build-up into a drop.

Has this thread made it this far without mentioning Kool and the Gang? Because I can't hear this without thinking hearing "Ladies Night," at least a bit.

Reaching back, but in what universe did "vintage electro R&B" not generate a bunch of major hits?

Plus go Tim.

Yeah, I am a wedding DJ and I KNOW I will be playing "Uptown Funk" at all the weddings this summer. Requestors will be like, "Um, do you have that one funk song? With Bruno Mars?" I guarantee it. The summer before I played "Get Lucky" and "Treasure" and "Blurred Lines" at almost all of the weddings. It is definitely wedding material. As for vintage electro r&b, when exactly was there last a hit in the charts that had that sound?

"Also, I don't think there's much of a song behind the signifiers."

Yeah, nope, there really isn't. At worst it is a mashing together of familiar sounds and tropes within electro r&b, and time won't to be too kind to it. Yes, the EDM build is the worst part.

Wedding song was the first thing I thought of hearing this. Like "I Gotta Feeling" it's pretty epic in length for a pop song, it has an intro that gives people a chance to run out onto the dance floor, etc.

As for vintage electro r&b, when exactly was there last a hit in the charts that had that sound?

― lowlytootle, Thursday, March 19, 2015 10:21 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ages, but if you're talking about what I think you're talking about, I understood the point to be that the sound was, in its earlier incarnation, widely successful - not an obscurity that Mars is translating for the masses (re: the Nirvana comparison).

Wedding song was the first thing I thought of hearing this. Like "I Gotta Feeling" it's pretty epic in length for a pop song, it has an intro that gives people a chance to run out onto the dance floor, etc.

― with HD lyrics (Eazy), Friday, March 20, 2015 3:22 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"I Gotta Feeling" is actually a really helpful non-obvious point of comparison, not just for length but also the sense that it's not ime. I heard it at lunch and immediately thought of "Uptown Funk" structurally.

Fixed:

"I Gotta Feeling" is actually a really helpful non-obvious point of comparison, not just for length but also the sense that it's not immediately apparent what is the key hook. I heard it at lunch and immediately thought of "Uptown Funk" structurally.

"Calvin Harris has perfected (or "perfected") this: see "We Found Love" or "Sweet Nothing", the way that the drop into the synths (whether instrumental or with vocals over the top) goes into an extended repeat-arpeggio for at least 8 bars. In EDM (and increasingly, pop generally), the structure could almost be extrapolated from filter-house, the chorus/drop being the section of the tune where the key riff snaps into clear focus."

i really love this paragraph

"Also, I don't think there's much of a song behind the signifiers."

Yeah, nope, there really isn't. At worst it is a mashing together of familiar sounds and tropes within electro r&b, and time won't to be too kind to it. Yes, the EDM build is the worst part.

― lowlytootle, vendredi 20 mars 2015 03:24 (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The few times I've tried to listen to it I couldn't even make it past what you guys call the "EDM part" !

Ages, but if you're talking about what I think you're talking about, I understood the point to be that the sound was, in its earlier incarnation, widely successful - not an obscurity that Mars is translating for the masses (re: the Nirvana comparison).

― Doctor Casino, vendredi 20 mars 2015 05:11 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed. besides the quality of each song, there's a difference between making it big with alternative/underground influences and making it by reviving a genre that was popular AND cool.

Because it sounds like Walk the Dinosaur by Was Not Was?

It makes people dance and it's a palette cleanser from previous hit singles that made people dance.
Also Bruno Mars sort of inventing a dance move for it in the video. You have to do a dance move on your dance hit to seal the deal.
It also sounds familiar.
Also Bruno Mars is no stranger to the hit charts.
It follows every rule on the manual by klf.
Why would it surprise to anyone this is a number one hit?

one of the key influences i'm hearing in this song is 'more bounce to the ounce'

Better this than what would probably be number one if not this. What's number two right now? (/easyjoke).

I thought it sounded exactly like Oops Upside Your Head?

Man, saying that this sound hasn't been in a number one hit before this was way off the mark, I was way wrong. It was late at night, I was tired. Yeah, it also sounds like Calvin Harris, or something like Starships - which I've also always thought of as EDM-like. The new thing, for me, is the way the retro seventies sound is accented by these pop-EDM signifiers, and I love that, and think it's very k-pop like. Saying it's more like Wild Cherry misses the point, imo.

American pop is often eiter tasteful or -less. This mix of things I don't often see.

they werent making songs like uptown funk in the 70s - this is the 80s after get lucky's 70s, like 1985 after daft punks 1978

Eh, I think this and "Get Lucky," contemporary production flourishes aside, are straight up 1979/1980.

I find it awesome that this is peaking right after the "Blurred Lines" verdict, given how closely it approximates the "feel" of so many of the above.

it peaked in the UK in the first half of january, now we're back to ellie goulding and sam smith for the rest of the year

Man, my kids always want me to switch the Sirius station to Venus, which I think bills itself as "rhythmic pop," and it is always Ellie Goulding, or Clavin Harris or Zedd and someone.

I feel like this article is a pretty comprehensive list of various comparisons that this song gets in term of 80s funk songs:
http://www.billboard.com/articles/6327615/sugarhill-gang-to-trinidad-james-influences-mark-ronson-bruno-mars-uptown

And yeah the first two things I thought of when I first heard this song were Roger's So Ruff So Tuff and George Kranz's Din Daa Daa.

Cool. That would make a fun party mix.

I find it awesome that this is peaking right after the "Blurred Lines" verdict, given how closely it approximates the "feel" of so many of the above.

yeah, they're lucky it doesn't sound like one specific song otherwise it would have been the end for them !

Ask most people to name a Midnight Star song and you'll likely get the No. 81 "No Parking (On The Dance Floor)" long before the No. 18 “Operator.”

uhhh wtf this is "Freak-A-Zoid" duh

Good history lesson in that Billboard piece regarding how many African-american acts did not get crossover pop airplay from late 70s through 1983 or so.

yeah, nice article and pretty good party mix indeed !

That billboard article is great and furthers the point that this song must have been made reading 'the manual' for a number one hit.

The groove is one way and zapp, the chorus gap band and trinidad and elements from those other songs mentioned here and there. Only instead of going for top hits from the past they dug a little more but the point the manual makes when making a pop hit and not worrying about writing it yourself stands.

Good history lesson in that Billboard piece regarding how many African-american acts did not get crossover pop airplay from late 70s through 1983 or so.

I blame MTV.

But the first two years of what they're calling a disco backlash happened before MTV even existed and MTV wasn't widely available until about 1983, at which point they did play some of those crossover hits the article mentions ("Little Red Corvette," "Beat It"...) Not that they couldn't have done better (a lot better) vis a vis black music. There was also at the time MTV's rival "Night Tracks" on TBS that was equally available - though not 24/7 - which did play black music.

You should copyright the "How to explain the popularity of _________?" wording in the thread title. I've got a whole bunch of them.

"It’s a penance by America for not making an irresistible style the pop success it deserved to be the first time around."

this slate quote is crazy! it sounds like half the hit pop songs of the 80's! it sounds exactly like the 80's. like eerily so. in the 80's video they would have had a dog in sunglasses and at the end of the video the dog would drive away with the model in the sports car and everyone in the video would look at the car driving away and go WHUUUHHH????

he'd have a point re the modest chart placings of zapp, gap band etc if people didn't also think this sounded like "living in america" and "walk the dinosaur"

see, what i like about it is that it absolutely sounds like all of these different songs, but not really like any of them. like at first glance it's a straight homage to either of those latter two songs, but listening to those, actually neither of those late-80s songs is as fat and electro-dirty and loud as zapp or "atomic dog" or the other turn-of-the-80s things being invoked here, or "uptown funk."

so it's clearly a really loving celebration of all this music, and maybe part of what it does is redeem those earlier sounds (clearly still MUCH beloved on "older folks" radio as mentioned above) by way of those later ones that kinda-sorta but didn't quite carry them over to the mainstream. i dunno, i think it's cool. i know jack shit about bruno mars's upbringing or w/e but i'm kinda imagining it like a tribute to his parents' music.... like what he heard around the house growing up. i guess that makes it like vampire weekend and graceland or something. or maybe not - all the sounds in the song (and the vintage black male fashions in the video) were pretty much totally disappeared from the wider landscape by the time he was six years old, if not from other outlets including hypothetical parents' stereos.

so sure, potentially it's more arch and revivalist, a brian setzer deal as noted above - but it's kinda better than brian setzer. i mean it's a cool song. it would have been a hit back then too IMO. whereas it's hard to imagine "stray cat strut" or "jump jive & wail" actually competing with the hitmakers of their respective nostalgia eras.

maybe another way to articulate this is that while the video totally presents a pastiche of fashions, lighting, scenes and camera angles you might have seen in an 80s video, it's otherwise free of LOL SEE IT'S THE 80S stuff. like it's pretty clear everybody is totally stoked to be dressing up like this, they know they look cool as hell and have always wanted to be in such a video. i'm struggling to think of a counterexample here, but, i dunno, it's not like weezer being on happy days or nirvana being on ed sullivan and the gag is that they don't belong there and they're cooler than those cheesy old-timey things that we make fun of now. or insert any rock/punk band that goes "back to the 80s" and it's comical that they're wearing hair metal wigs etc. and maybe i'm mistaken, or giving the song too much credit, but part of me really wants to take that as a kind of transgressive gesture, reclaiming some kinda bypassed or overlooked urban cultural forms with strong black and latino roots, refusing to wink-wink around them, and making them into a gigantic hit song.

i may also just be mixing this up with the atomic dog/genius of love thread, where pappwheelie talks about playing these early 80s classics and getting told by bartenders "to stop as 'we're not selling beer to 40 yr old black men,' despite the 21 year old white girls dancing..." funk those bartenders.

reminds me of mj too. and jj. they were pretty big back then. mark/bruno could do a good cover of what have you done for me lately...

come to think of it, janet and cab calloway in zoot suits = bruno

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8Ow1nlafOg

wow i didn't realize dan hartman co-wrote 'living in america' (which honestly is the song that the duplo-house stylings of 'uptown funk' reminds me of more than any at this point)

whoops @ that edit resulting in a bad verb agreement

Huh, I don't think I've ever actually heard "Walk the Dinosaur" before! I mean, I probably did as a kid, but I'm listening to it now, and it doesn't sound familiar. Good example to bring up in this thread.

this slate quote is crazy! it sounds like half the hit pop songs of the 80's! it sounds exactly like the 80's. like eerily so. in the 80's video they would have had a dog in sunglasses and at the end of the video the dog would drive away with the model in the sports car and everyone in the video would look at the car driving away and go WHUUUHHH????

― scott seward, Friday, March 20, 2015 7:48 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

voting scott for king of 80s examination