Bruno Mars debuts '24k Magic': How he's succeeded with 'throwback' sound

Singer Bruno Mars has released a new song, “24k Magic,” that reviewers say is a continuation of his nostalgia-influenced sound and which Mr. Mars says will be a song on an upcoming album.

“Magic” will also be the title of a new album by Mars that will be released this November. The song “Magic” is the first solo song that Mars has come out with in four years (not counting, for example, the smash hit “Uptown Funk,” which was released by Mark Ronson and on which Mars was featured). 

Mars has also released albums such as “Doo-Wops & Hooligans” and “Unorthodox Jukebox” – the latter of which, his previous album, spawned several hit singles. 

Before releasing his own music, Mars co-wrote and/or produced such hit songs such as Travie McCoy’s song “Billionaire” and the B.o.B song “Nothin’ On You.” 

The singer performed at the 2014 Super Bowl with the band the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and returned at this year’s Super Bowl to perform alongside Beyonce and Coldplay. 

Much of music is of course influenced by what came before, and critics say this is especially evident with Mars. The strategy has obviously been a successful one for Mars, and one that the public has responded to positively: the artist has released various hit songs in the last several years, including “Uptown Funk,” “Just The Way You Are,” “Grenade,” and “Locked Out of Heaven.” 

Mars "infuses his songs with old-fashioned crooning as classily antique as his wide-brimmed fedora," Rolling Stone writer Jody Rosen wrote of Mars’s album “Unorthodox Jukebox,” comparing it to his debut, “Doo-Wops & Hooligans.” 

“24K Magic” is more of that style, according to Forbes writer Hugh McIntyre, who writes of the song he calls a “throwback,” “Mars gets groovy, pulling from sounds and styles that were hugely popular in both the 1970s and 1980s.”