Celeb News: 'Unorthodox Jukebox' reviews | 71

Bliss

71

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Entertainment Weekly 91
His talent for crafting little pop perfections of all stripes is undeniable.

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Rolling Stone 80
The result is a record that makes the competition sound sad and idea-starved by comparison.

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Spin 80
The bulk of Unorthodox Jukebox benefits from presenting Bruno Mars as he truly imagines himself: a big belter with an ear for pop hooks, sure, but one unafraid to dive into murkier waters.

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PopMatters 80
All in all, this is a truly accomplished and slick pop album, but its lyrical content will probably lose Bruno Mars some sales and some of his core audience.

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Billboard.com 77
His highly anticipated sophomore album succeeds in mixing its safer stylistic choices with its relatively bold ideas.

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BBC Music 70
It's appealing, generally engaging and all shot through with the confidence of a man who must feel he's got the hit parade Midas touch

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Paste Magazine 70
Mars still plays the sweetheart card well, but he's proven himself way more interesting as a badass.

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Boston Globe 70
Sounds like Bruno Mars is trying to rough up his image a bit on his strong, if sometimes oddly lyrically aggressive, second album.

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The Independent (UK) 60
Bruno Mars is a talented chap, he's forced to demean his abilities by echoing other artists' former glories on Unorthodox Jukebox, whose title all but gives the game away.

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Slant Magazine 60
While not an unqualified triumph, Unorthodox Jukebox is a step forward.

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The Independent on Sunday (UK) 60
When he isn't sounding like a Police album track ("Locked Out of Heaven") or a Musical Youth album track ("Show Me"), he's mostly sounding like a Wham! album track (the disco-pop "Treasure" being a case in point).

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The Observer (UK) 60
Overall, there is rather less doo-wopping on Unorthodox Jukebox, an album that, despite its title, deserves your grudging respect, and a little more hooliganism.

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The A.V. Club 58
He's an undeniable talent, desperately searching for an identity to claim as his own.

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All Music Guide 50
Too bad it's a step back from Doo-Wops in so many ways, leaving people who saw promise in his debut shaking their heads in disappointment and hoping Mars can sort out his feelings about women and get back to being a sweet romancer, instead of an icky hater

Source

Imogene

Entertainment Weekly 91/100

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Does Bruno Mars really love you just the way you are? That's what he promised on 2010's smash Doo-Wops + Hooligans, a glorious slab of fedora-wearing, marriage-proposing, catch-a-grenade-for-ya chivalry. But outside the studio his image wasn't so gentlemanly: When he got busted for cocaine possession that same year, he told GQ, ''I'm not gonna preach that I'm a role model. I'm a f---ing musician!''

That mantra defines his excellent Unorthodox Jukebox, which feels much truer to life for a 27-year-old millionaire who vacations in Vegas. Now he's free to brag about his ''cocaine ticker'' (on the sexy-funny ''Gorilla'') and write a strip-club-directed banger (''Money Make Her Smile''). He's dropped the golden-boy bit, but at least he's being honest. And his talent for crafting little pop perfections of all stripes is undeniable: The '60s-soul romance ''If I Knew'' smolders like a Solomon Burke track, and he dips easily into both Police-style reggae-rock (''Locked Out of Heaven'') and dancehall with tape-echo effects and air horns in all the right places (''Show Me''). ''Treasure'' even makes silk-jumpsuit disco feel contemporary.

Old-school charm still gets Mars the furthest, and the best thing here is the classic torch song ''When I Was Your Man,'' which finds him at the piano listing all the ways he wronged an ex. ''Caused a good, strong woman like you to walk out my life,'' he cries in his Sinatra-smooth tenor, oozing charm. Maybe he's a jerk. But he's the jerk that girl's going home with tonight. A-

The Independent UK 60/100

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In today's talent-show-dominated entertainment world, no quality seems more highly prized than the ability to imitate.

Legions of the tone-deaf queue up to show how laughably they can ape Mariah Carey's melismatics; but bang out a show tune in a half-decent approximation of a cruise-ship siren, and the world will beat a path to your door: these are the poles upon which The X Factor's appeal is strung, and they poke malignantly into the rest of pop. So although Bruno Mars is a talented chap, he's forced to demean his abilities by echoing other artists' former glories on Unorthodox Jukebox, whose title all but gives the game away.

Most of the echoes thrown off by these 10 tracks understandably bring to mind Michael Jackson: the gold-diggers of "Money Make Her Smile" and "Natalie" are clearly cousins of "Dirty Diana" and "Billie Jean", their shortcomings squawked breathlessly over insipid synth-pop.

But elsewhere other Eighties ghosts haunt the album. Bruno demonstrates a keen appreciation of Patrice Rushen's funk-pop on "Treasure"; a talent for McCartney-esque piano balladry on "When I Was Your Man"; and most glaringly of all on the single "Locked out of Heaven", a command of The Police's limber R&B pop style. Only the veneer of 21st-century sexuality pasted over the song saves it from tribute-band homage.

Which is not to say that there aren't more pleasingly individual tracks among the 10: Bruno's impassioned shame at dumbly trying to impress "these bright-eyed honeys" is carried by methodical string and wind quadruplets and floppy, Spector-esque tom-toms on the enjoyable "Young Girls", while his daring admission of unbridled sensuality in "Gorilla" is keenly swathed by Diplo's deep swirl of synths and big beats. And the gentle reggae skank of "Show Me", rooted in his native Hawaiian influence, finds Mars's voice ideally suited to cool-ruler-style crooning.

But it's the closing dip into deep-soul pleading on "If I Knew" that assures the brightness of his future: for once, it's just a style, not a specific copy of another artist, and it allows Bruno the space to express his own sweet character.

Download: Young Girls; Locked out of Heaven; Gorilla; If I Knew

BBC Music 70/100

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Shot through with the confidence of a man with the hit parade Midas touch.

Pretty much the biggest pop star in the world right now whose name isn't Adele, Bruno Mars is ubiquitous and prolific with it.

Both with and without his songwriting/production crew The Smeezingtons, Mars has had a hand in hits by Cee Lo Green, Sugababes, Justin Bieber, Adam Lambert and Alicia Keys, and has scored a clutch of UK and US number ones under his own steam – all in just a couple of years on the scene. Either he's the new Smokey Robinson or he's spreading himself so thin he'll be a chirpy pop gauze by 2013.

Well, he's not quite see-through yet. It's soon plain that Unorthodox Jukebox lacks the immediacy of 2010's Doo-Wops & Hooligans – there's no Marry You here, and certainly no global chart-topper like Just the Way You Are.

But it's appealing, generally engaging and all shot through with the confidence of a man who must feel he's got the hit parade Midas touch. Bar the odd misstep, he probably won't have a rude awakening.

Those stumbles are Show Me's wan facsimile of Musical Youth's Pass the Dutchie (one of 2012's more unlikely influences) and the sugary early 80s funk of Treasure, which is lathered in so much slap bass it starts to sting.

Speaking of Sting – ouch – his spectre is all over first single Locked Out of Heaven, in the clipped Message in a Bottle chords and Mars' yelping, staccato delivery. But that's about the only time Mars allows his own identity to be subsumed.

Otherwise, he's equally cosy fronting saucy semi-rock belter Gorilla – "You get your legs up in the sky with the devil in your eyes" – and sprinting on the spot to the unhinged electro-soul of the Diplo-produced Money Makes Her Smile.

The latter's some respite from maudlin "My baby wronged me" / "I wronged my baby" stuff in Natalie and When I Was Your Man, but there's room for both in Mars' repertoire. Rock, soul, RnB and starry-eyed pop – he's across it all.

Taste of Honey

Yay.

Hopefully the score stays above 70. It should anyways, it's a great album.

Bliss

The Guardian 60/100

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Most simians learn by copying, and humans are no exception. You could make an anthropological case arguing that singers are the foremost perpetuators of monkey hear, monkey do. We all know that Stars in Their Eyes never really left British TV screens, it just came back as The X Factor, an orthodox jukebox of moves to cop.

Bruno Mars, author of 2010's hugely successful Doo-Wops & Hooligans, has often been criticised for aping his heroes. His penchant for jumping genres has been ascribed to a Hawaiian childhood spent impersonating Elvis, his fondness for the "wrong" kind of old music – doo-wop – evidence of a damning lack of edge.

Of course the impersonation Mars cleaves to the closest is Michael Jackson, aided by that studied trilby, a crushed croon and lithe performer's physique. If you tell a lie enough times, it starts ringing true, and something has clearly rubbed off on Mars. No one is saying that the man born Peter Hernández is in the same league as MJ, but Billboard magazine went so far recently as to identify his potent "quadruple threat" as a singer-songwriter-producer-performer who is rather handy at this whole tune-mongering caper. Mars writes for himself and others (Cee Lo Green's Forget You was one of his); he produces, as one of the Smeezingtons (Sugababes, Flo Rida); he lit up the Grammys this year with the exhortation: "Get off your rich asses and let's have some fun!"

Listening to his second album, you can easily see why this capable, versatile man is so successful; the most famous thing out of Hawaii since Barack Obama. In the fraught, loud, ADD world of pop production, Mars's songs value narrative arc and internal logic; his soundscapes have three dimensions. Every element isn't just yelling at you from the front.

But it's harder to see why anyone is a fan of his in particular, because Mars remains a cipher. This second charabanc jumps around just as much as his first, taking in reggae, a piano ballad, soft rock and vocoder funk. Given the Jimmy Savile scandal, a song extolling the virtues of "young wild girls" sounds a little off-key to British ears in 2012, but you can't fault the tunefulness at work.

Reggae is big in Hawaii; Mars's syrupy vocal works well on the persuasive lover's dub Show Me, the work of Jamaican producer Supa Dups. The single, Locked Out of Heaven, by contrast, channels the Police. But its 21st-century builds owe as much to rave-pop as they do to producer Mark Ronson. It's an ill-omened meeting that somehow gels.

Overall, there is rather less doo-wopping on Unorthodox Jukebox, an album that, despite its title, deserves your grudging respect, and a little more hooliganism. Mars the loverman made his name singing heartfelt pap whose old-time vibe found favour with pre-teens and maiden aunts. Now, on the soft rock of Gorilla, he's riffing on a coitus so animalistic, the lucky lady is pounding on his chest.

The story goes that Mars heard one his sloochiest hits, Just the Way You Are, in a Paris strip club. It sounded all wrong. The incident could have put a nice guy like him off strip clubs. But Mars resolved to write a more apposite song. The result is Money Make Her Smile, a seductive collaboration with world-beat bad boy Diplo, and not half as Neanderthal as it could be.

.:Allen:.

I hope this gets an 80 average

IVY

So he's at 70 right now, I hope he gets something like that at the end.

jongshic

izzy

great reviews so far

Imogene

I told you before that The Guardian will give UJ similar score to The independent. Thy gave 40 to his debut so I really like seeing that increase. We has still many reviews to go.

IVY

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Originally posted by Imogene

I told you before that The Guardian will give UJ similar store to The independent. Thy gave 40 to his debut so I really like seeing that increase. We has still many reviews to go.

The Guardian hates everybody literally, they are always mainstream music snobs.

Imogene

I know... but at least they gave 60 this time xP If the biggest snobs gives UJ 3 stars it's a good sign, imo.

Callum

i adore this album

Eizen

Slant Magazine (counts for Metacritic)

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60/100
For all of Bruno Mars's attempts to brand Unorthodox Jukebox as sonically progressive, there isn't anything remotely unorthodox about his new album. A hodgepodge of musical styles, it offers the impression not of an artist heroically blurring boundaries, but of a well-schooled pop star using his gift for variety-show mimicry to conquer as many demographics as possible. When the synthy '80s flourishes start blurring together with the approximations of R&B and reggae, it's a result of the unifying narrowness of Mars's sound, which revolves around a ruthless, hook-driven eagerness to please, and his worldview, which vacillates between old-school notions of courtship ("I should've bought you flowers and held your hand") and "Dirty Diana"-inspired misogyny ("I'm digging a ditch/For this gold-digging bitch").

There's a carefree attitude that offsets the album's ambitions. Despite similarities to Adam Levine and Gavin DeGraw, singers who also use a diluted form of vintage soul as the foundation for their middle-of-the-road pop-rock, Mars is by far the superior vocalist. Fueled by a tenor capable of belting Steve Perry-style high notes with both clarity and grit, his performances toggle between a midrange of soft, puppy-dog sincerity and passages that drift just enough out of his comfort zone to replicate soul-man desperation. The singing can sometimes come across a little workmanlike, and as with Alicia Keys, Mars's tone isn't voluptuous or idiosyncratic enough to wow an audience. But that minor limitation is also the key to his appeal, allowing him to seem casual and unfussy even when he's gunning for pop-chameleon recognition.

While not an unqualified triumph, Unorthodox Jukebox is a step forward. Where his debut, Doo-Wops & Hooligans, was a forgettable EP-length collection steeped in gory melodrama ("Grenade"), gimmicky humor ("The Lazy Song"), and pseudo-romantic sycophancy ("Just the Way You Are"), his sophomore effort signals a move from street-side troubadour cutesiness to a bigger, stadium-filling sound. Much of this can be attributed to a trio of new collaborators—including superstar-grade producers Mark Ronson, Jeff Bhasker, and Diplo—who ornament trifles like the '80s funk-pop tribute "Treasure" and the Police-aping "Locked Out of Heaven" with layers of synth effects and party-ready rhythms. When Mars goes back to just piano and vocals on "When I Was Your Man," his melody and lyrics end up sounding as slight as they did before—an embarrassment for an artist who's staked so much of his image on sturdy, old-fashioned songcraft.

The album's highlight is the Diplo-assisted "Gorilla," on which Mars gives Miguel and Usher a run for their money for most infectious bedroom anthem of the year. Opening with Mars's bleating vocals, a lyrical reference to cocaine, and a stark, insinuating beat, the song unleashes a tide of coital aggression on a chorus filled wall to wall with falsetto coos, monstrous bursts of drums, and plinky piano right out of Prince's "The Beautiful Ones." Even when Mars pulls a similar trick on the gentler, power-pop-meets-quiet-storm "Moonshine," one keeps hoping for the energy of another "Gorilla" to elevate what amounts to a reasonably listenable exercise in genre fetishization.

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Originally posted by IVY

The Guardian hates everybody literally, they are always mainstream music snobs.

They gave Born This Way 4 stars

Taste of Honey

I swear if this winds up with a lower score than another recently released album...

Imogene

OMG

Bruno during today's CBS Morning when asked what he would say to critics dragging his music he said:

You can go to hell..... Shup up! Write a song yourself then...

I'm JAVIng Fun

good reviews, I want to listen to it, is it better than DW&H????

Taste of Honey

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Originally posted by I'm JAVIng Fun

good reviews, I want to listen to it, is it better than DW&H????

Without any hesitation, yes.

alkralkra

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Originally posted by Eizen

They gave Born This Way 4 stars

The Guardian recognizes quality music.

IVY

I am waiting for BB & the Rolling Stone's reviews.

Entity

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Originally posted by .:Allen:.

I hope this gets an 80 average

Don't hold your breath.