In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.
Bruno Mars is a machine.I mean that in the figurative sense.
Probably.If we eventually learn that Bruno Mars is a liquid metal terminator who’s been sent back in time to make catchy retro hits, I’ll be surprised, but I won’t be shocked.
Mars has been ridiculously famous and successful for more than 15 years, and I don’t really know much more about him than I did when he sang the hook on B.o.B.’s “Nothin’ On You.” He doesn’t really look any different, either.Sometimes, his hair will get a little poofier.
Sometimes, he’ll have a little pencil-thin mustache or a slight wardrobe change.But the ravages of time seemingly do not affect Bruno Mars.
Little things like artistic development don’t really figure in much, either.Most pop stars want us to know everything about them.
They want to establish elaborate universes and hide little hints about future projects in music-video Easter eggs.They have feuds or friendships or romances with other pop stars.
They change up styles to fit the zeitgeist, or sometimes to drive the zeitgeist.They fall off, and sometimes they come back again.
None of this applies to Bruno Mars.He’s got a slick, shiny retro-pop sensibility.
He’ll tweak it or fine-tune it, but that really only means that he’ll look to different eras for inspiration.He’ll disappear for years at a time, but he won’t be gone.
He’ll just be off on fabulously lucrative global tours or playing fabulously lucrative Las Vegas residencies.He’ll occasionally collaborate with his pop-star peers, but those link-ups always seem like business transactions rather than twin flames converging.
He doesn’t put much music out into the world, but if he’s i...