Bruno Mars/Smeezingtons singles poll

NO PARKIN BABY

NO PARKIN ON THE DANCEFLOOR

basically every single of his since this poll has been better than the best song on this list

otm

"uptown funk" is dope imo

it is awesome and will be filling wedding playlists for at least the next 5 years

"uptown funk" repulses me

the new "happy" the new "fuck you" the worst music ever

Uptown Funk is great.

Uptown Funk is really, really great

"uptown funk" has so much more oomph than "happy" "fuck you" et al, i like it

i think "uptown funk" structurally sounds like five vines bolted together but the horns are great and it's probably a blast to dance to

it has a bunch of fun little details that push it over the top for me, also the live performances (not video) have been great

i also love the trinidad james thing

haha i was about to say that's the worst part

other than the fixation on dragon retirement plans

with the exception of "treasure", i think that i have liked each of his singles successively more as they have been released. "uptown funk" is charming. i prefer it to "happy" and "fuck you" but enjoy both those songs too.

We had our work Xmas night in one of those party nights hotels throw and "Uptown Funk" was played three times to rapturous joy each time, it is definitely going to turn into a wedding classic. The song is good, better than anything from Mars and Ronson ought to be, but the video sucks away so much of it's joy, especially after seeing X Factor runner-up Fleur selling the song with much more personality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9Wq7B_VV_U

uptown funk came on at about 1am on sunday morning at a festival i was at on the weekend and ppl went ballistic

also uptown funk >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> happy & fck you

Each single made me loathe his voice more, but "Uptown Funk" presents the best setting for it. Better grit than awful falsetto. Or: James Brown >>>>> Sting.

even if it's Dan Hartman-produced Brown.

"Uptown Funk" is whatever but there are more pressing issues going on in the world than Bruno's Kool & the Gang cosplay. Like getting Sam Smith out the paint.

Middle-aged people fucking love this song ime.

^^^ OTM

middle aged people fucking love bruno mars

^^^ also OTM

True but I feel like it's ESPECIALLY the case with this one.

My middleaged mom fucking loves Uptown Funk. She says she put it on at her workchristmasparty, and all the young people thought she was cool. I'm young, and I think it's cool as well, so I believe her. BradNelson is right that it sounds like Vines cobbled together, though, it has that EDM-like structure, or perhaps like a K-pop track. I love it for that. And the SNL performance was amazing.

it sounds like Vines cobbled together

I have no idea what the fuck this is supposed to mean. Like a bunch of shorter sections cobbled together? Like people have written songs for ages?

it definitely sounds more like a bunch of different loosely related vamps strung together than verse/chorus/bridge, even if it actually is structured like a pop song. like, the Prince song it's most analogous to would be "It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night" (although obv it's more The Time than Prince proper).

"It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night" and The Time existed long before Vine videos, as do funk jam songs structured like this, so using that as your comparison point comes across like you've never heard of James Brown, Prince, Morris Day, Parliament, or really any funk band that existed before 2010

this one particularly:
'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uFezo4hDFs

"It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night" and The Time existed long before Vine videos, as do funk jam songs structured like this, so using that as your comparison point comes across like you've never heard of James Brown, Prince, Morris Day, Parliament, or really any funk band that existed before 2010

lol thanks dan

i just think it sounds super disorganized and about its own "moments" in a way that zero of your examples necessarily are

glad y'all like this song though it's pretty good!

make a brad wanna retire, man

Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson are such a natural match of tasteful retro nerds but my feelings on the song kind of split the difference between how i feel about them -- Mars has undeniable skill/star quality and has written a few hits that aren't full-on genre pastiches, but Ronson is just a well connected rich kid who'd probably be making mashups if he didn't have access to big stars to collaborate with.

It's just that those sections are particularly short. I said it was like EDM before, which is how I've mainly thought about it. That build to the drop where the horns come in - and those horns are Antibalas, right? That The Time song doesn't do the same at all.

those horns are Antibalas, right?

!!!!!

Wiki says: 'the airtight turnarounds and sharp horn lines in "Uptown Funk", courtesy of members of Antibalas and Dap Kings, didn’t come easy.'

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.

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?