Artist
Bruno Mars
Why we feature this artist Old records, fresh timing Bruno Mars brings a performer’s sense of timing to songs that draw freely from soul, pop, funk and R&B. His records can sound familiar before you know them, yet their appeal rests on details: a drum accent, …
- From
- United States
- Sound
- Pop, R&B, funk, soul
- Active
- 1990–present
Start with the music
Tracks to explore
The artist, in context
The story of Bruno Mars
Why we feature this artist
Old records, fresh timing
Bruno Mars brings a performer’s sense of timing to songs that draw freely from soul, pop, funk and R&B. His records can sound familiar before you know them, yet their appeal rests on details: a drum accent, a neatly delayed vocal entrance or a chorus that lands exactly where it should.
An introduction in several moods
Doo-Wops & Hooligans established Mars as a solo artist in 2010. Just the Way You Are and Grenade show two sides of his early songwriting: open romantic reassurance and a more emphatic, wounded drama. The album also makes room for relaxed rhythmic textures. That range becomes clearer on Unorthodox Jukebox, released in 2012, where the arrangements are less concerned with staying inside a single genre. Locked Out of Heaven has a nervous, propulsive energy, while When I Was Your Man strips the setting back to voice and piano.
The contrast is useful because it reveals how much of the identity comes from the performance itself. Mars can sing softly without losing focus and deliver a large chorus without making every line equally forceful. The songs depend on those changes in pressure. Even the most polished productions retain a sense that a singer is actively shaping the moment.
The rhythm section comes forward
24K Magic placed funk and R&B textures at the centre of the next solo album. The title track, That’s What I Like and Finesse invite a different kind of attention: listen to the space between the drums and bass, then to the way the vocals move through it. His later work with Anderson .Paak as Silk Sonic makes the conversation with older soul records still more explicit. The interest is in how those influences are performed and arranged, rather than in identifying a reference and stopping there. The early albums mark a natural continuation of the melodic pop and R&B that filled the previous decade, with a confident ear for a new one.
Essential releases
Doo-Wops & Hooligans
A concise introduction to Mars as a singer and songwriter, moving between the direct appeal of Just the Way You Are and the heightened emotion of Grenade.
Unorthodox Jukebox
The palette widens substantially. Locked Out of Heaven and When I Was Your Man make an especially revealing pair, one driven by rhythm and the other by exposed piano.
24K Magic
A tightly organised collection of funk and R&B pop. Follow the instrumental accents as closely as the lead vocal; much of the record’s charm is in that exchange.