Bruno Mars' 24K Magic / Locked Out Of Heaven

I've given myself the task of writing about one song a week for 2024 because, well, I think it'd be fun. And now, now we're in the depths. This is a challenge from a friend (which means at least one person other than me is going to glance at this), I don't even listen to Bruno Mars that much.

Bruno Mars' 24K Magic / Locked Out Of Heaven

Happy birthday Bruno Mars...two weeks later. My apologies, I have someone else to write up for the week of the 8th.

The most impact Bruno Mars has had on my life comes from Roy Wood Jr's suggestion that the American national anthem should be replaced by "24K Magic". I think constantly of Roy's suggestion that "we please rise and sing our national anthem, 24K Magic; remove your hats and put your pinky fingers to the moon at this time." (I also think constantly of his criticism that the anthem's "beat is wack, it don't go hard.")

That's it. That's all I got.

But so we go on.

It's one of those weird things where I do like "24K Magic" quite a bit, but I have little to say about it. I do love the line "put your pinky fingers to the moon". I have no idea what it means, but damn is it a great image. Beginning with the chorus is a fascinating idea too, because the song is not so much a song (a vehicle of meaning) as it is an anthem, a theme for partiers. The song is only escalation, reaching heaven (denoted by Bruno singing "24 karat magic in the aiiiiiiiiiiir"), and then escalating again. Even when it drops - as in the section in the song where the background singers repeat "24 karat" - it still bounces.

But I kinda don't like funk. I mean, I love P-Funk, but I have never liked any kind of funk since Dr. Dre's debut, meaning I've never liked any kind of funk since the '90s. I may except Snoop's debut, "Doggystyle". It's weird.

P-Funk is more than Clinton's vision of what a band should sound like, or what to do with the horns, or how a guitar should be played, it's Clinton's response to life. His music is populated with smooth talkers, car salesmen and the suckers who're their victims. Funk is the defense one puts on to sidestep jerks. You see elements of this from Parliament (I love 1980's "Trombipulation"), but it becomes really clear with Funkadelic, particularly with the seminal "Maggot Brain". What an invaluable lesson, as I'm getting around to the idea that funk really is the cure for all of humanity's ills.

I don't even like the funk of Thundercat or Janelle Monae. Funk nowadays is nostalgic and used for partying. It's meant to harken to parties past, as if the '70s and '80s were really such a great time. I'm really trying not be a buzzkill. Modern funk is meant to evoke fucking. Not that funk isn't sexual, but it's not necessarily meant to be strictly carnal. "Doggystyle" I like because I think Snoop is self-aware about it. As you move towards the '00s where gender relations have advanced, so moving to music's awkward adolescence, songs have become kinda sexless. So Bruno can't bring on heat, as in, evoking the steam and sweat of sex, but he can flirt a lot. Sex nowadays is fucking, whereas P-Funk conveyed it as movement. If you want to hear the difference, take Parliament's explicitly-sexual "Let's Play House" or Bootsy Collins' "Psychoticbumpschool". In particular, notice who plays the keyboard in "Let's Play House" - the player I can't tell as there are five credited for the album - whose warbles and wubs fight the beat, creating an intro of 30 seconds with so much tension. The guitar also has a strong physical presence in "Psychoticbumpschool". In comparison, Bruno's "Chunky" is just bass, placed in the background. The guitar is a sexy instrument! It's sexy because it's mortal, it's sexy because the strings represent the snaking of the body, and the reason why it's not in "24K Magic" is because Bruno does not want to remind you you will die. There is nothing more sexy than knowing there's only this night.

I do love "That's What I Like" though. The lines, "Jump in the Cadillac, / girl, let's put some miles on it", are my favorite. As we have talked a lot this whole year, pop music most desires movement, as conveyed by the lyrics, as conveyed by the instruments. No wonder pop stars love cars.

As odd as it is for me to admit, I think Bruno's forays into pop in the early 2010s are his best attempts at music so far. The songs are tighter, the hooks come out stronger, and the simplicity helps memorability. Meaning, his "best" (and this does deserve quotations by me) songs were the ones I heard when I was in high school. You know, for all the earworms Bruno has made, I've never resented him for it. I've never been a fan of musicians making me feel something without my consent. I resent Gotye, I resent Carly Rae Jepsen, and I resent Ed Sheeran, but I do not resent Bruno.

"Treasure" off "Unorthodox Jukebox" is great. It's a dead-simple song, with a strong chorus, with an equally strong post-chorus after the second iteration. There isn't even anything more to say about this 2:59-long song. It's so precise that its lies in listening to it, over talking about it. I've always respected Bruno possibly less as an artist and more as a craftsman, which is what an artist is so I'm not sure what I'm talking about.

Then there's "Locked Out of Heaven", which is another perfectly fine song, but feels sterile to me. The stuttered "yeah-yeah-ooh" is meant to arouse something primal from the listener, but the sound is so hollow and rote that it feels mechanical and lifeless. The guitar, which I said is sexy, is drowned in the chorus by a synthesizer. Where music should be a harmony, "Locked Out of Heaven" is awkward to the point of being Frankenstein-ian. What is an excellent vocal performance from Bruno is impacted by an arrangement that lacks the energy he himself possesses.

Apparently, "Locked Out of Heaven" sounded initially like Santana's "Smooth", which version I would fucking kill to listen to. (Up to this article, I never knew what the name of "Smooth" was nor the artist behind it, though I heard the song itself passingly in malls. What a damn mistake. It's such a fucking great song. I'm playing it on repeat now and for whatever reason it makes me think thematically of George Michael's "Faith". Man, men can be very possessive.)

Which is why I did not put the canonical version, on "Unorthodox Jukebox", before the article. I put this ... punk? metal? cover by some band called The Parade instead.

Listening to this cover makes the song click for me. Let me explain.

Never had much faith in love or miracles,
never want to put my heart on the line -

You hear it too? These are the same sentiments in punk music! Who puts them in a pop song?!?!

It was radical for George Michael to deny sex on "Faith", an extremely sexy song. Who doesn't get turned on by the Bo Diddley beat? But the incredibly brilliant thing about "Faith" is that, as much as Michael's lover turns him on, Michael loving himself is an even bigger turn on. There are no lows in the song, the song just goes higher and higher. That's pop.

The lines above, and the feelings of the singer, are deprecatory, they're depressing, they're, in a word, negative. Turn your attention now to the chorus:

'Cause you make me feel like
I've been locked out of heaven
for too long, for too long.

Again, it's another negative sentiment. Rather than being in heaven, he has spent his entire life out of heaven. The imagery, too, is metal. I mean, if you don't want the listener to think of heaven, what else are they thinking of? To cap off this wild interpretation, the post-chorus has Bruno screaming "Can I just stay here? Spend the rest of my days here?" from a position of pure powerlessness. It's a weird pop song for sure, where the singer finds neither power nor immediate pleasure from the scenario, where most songs find the singer finding power in powerlessness, funnily enough.

Another fascinating thing about this song is that the woman depicted in it is inherently fictitious, has become an idol for the singer. They take on god-like proportions and salvation. Again, very metal!

The Parade get it perfectly right. I love that big meaty snare in the beginning of the cover. The singer's singing is contrasted by a lively, energetic and hard-sounding band. It helps that the music video shows said human beings bopping with him. And the singing is just as emotional, pained and reaching as Bruno's singing. When the chorus builds up, you get that gnarly blast of sound depicting the vacillation of the singer, of looking up to this lover and looking back, and the desperation to be in that person's arms again. And the drums are mixed so well, of such loudness and ferocity they lend the singer's anguish Biblical proportions.

Yet, in a fascinating turnabout, the cover returns back to make Bruno look good. As kludgy as the original is, the cover reveals how well-structured the original is and how well-written it is. It also reveals how great Bruno's performance. The arrangements are the sole issue. As far as the radio goes, B+ is good enough.