Bruno Mars – Doo-Wops & Hooligans (2010/2012/2017) [Qobuz FLAC 24bit/44,1kHz]

Hawaiian singer-songwriter/producer Bruno Mars has contributed to huge hits by many other artists. He mined his own Gold with his chart-topping debut Doo-Wops & Hooligans, which was up for seven Grammy Awards and won him Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for ‘Just the Way You Are.’ Our songbook includes that song, the #1 single ‘Grenade,’ and: Count On Me, The Lazy Song, Liquor Store Blues, Marry You, The Other Side, Our First Time, Runaway Baby and Talking to the Moon. Although the album plays with a number of styles, going back-and-forth from pop to reggae and in between messing around with timeless Motown grooves, Doo-Wops & Hooligans is a strong debut that could well make Mars a contender for Grammy’s Best New Artist.

Bruno Mars was riding high when his first album, Doo-Wops & Hooligans, was released in late 2010. He was also writing songs as part of the successful production team the Smeezingtons, and doing some hook singing (for huge hits by Travie McCoy and B.o.B.), Mars seemed to dominate the radio and charts. Indeed the first single from the album, the lushly romantic “Just the Way You Are,” was topping the singles chart. For the album, Mars worked with a large team of songwriters and producers, but still managed to come up with a record that sounds like it was written and recorded on a warm, sleepy summer Sunday afternoon. The intimate and relaxed feel can be traced to two factors; one, Mars mostly played all the instruments himself and two, his voice is the kind of smooth instrument that slips into your ear like honey. Most of the tracks on Doo-Wops capture this laid-back groove, especially “The Lazy Song” and the reggaefied midnight love jam “Our First Time.” Mars barely raises a sweat on these tracks, cruising in low gear but with a very likeable style. It’s not very deep and it’s not poetry, but sweetly played and sung songs like “Count on Me” or “Just the Way You Are” project a cuddly image and will melt hearts from tweens to old folks. When he turns up the volume and boosts the tempo, however, the album suffers a little. “Runaway Baby” is a pretty cheesy rocker, suffering from clichéd lyrics and production. Faring better thanks to some dynamics and nuanced production is the pleasantly silly “Marry You.” (The less said about the over-the-top “Grenade,” the better.) The only glimpse of Mars as something more than an innocuous charmer is on the song that ends the album. “The Other Side” features Cee Lo Green and B.o.b., and has the most complicated melody, and the best production and singing; it sounds like the only song that Mars truly invested with some soul and grit. It was also recorded way before the rest of the album, and featured on the EP that came out earlier in 2010. It points to a direction Mars could have taken with the album but didn’t. As it is, Doo-Wops & Hooligans is an uneven debut that shows why Mars is likeable and popular, but doesn’t tap into his full potential as a writer or producer.

Tracklist:
01 – Grenade
02 – Just The Way You Are
03 – Our First Time
04 – Runaway Baby
05 – The Lazy Song
06 – Marry You
07 – Talking To The Moon
08 – Liquor Store Blues (feat. Damian Marley)
09 – Count On Me
10 – The Other Side (feat. CeeLo Green and B.o.B)
11 – Somewhere In Brooklyn
12 – Talking To The Moon (Acoustic Piano Version)

Download:

mqs.link_BrunMarsDWpsHligans20102017Qbuz24441.rar

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