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Nov 23, 2016He succinctly gets his point across by instilling that much needed old-school nostalgia lacking in music today with nine tracks. Instead of diving into the album with a bloated guest list, Bruno and his production team, Shampoo Press & Curl (with assistance from longtime collaborators The Stereotypes) ensure 80s babies stay forever young.
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Nov 18, 2016With only nine songs, there’s not an ounce of fat on Magic, and nearly every track sounds like Top 40 gold.
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Dec 1, 2016Few albums designed to sound like a party actually play like one, but Bruno Mars has pulled it off with style.
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Nov 18, 2016On his third album, Mars, joined primarily by old comrades Philip Lawrence, Brody Brown, and James Fauntleroy, sheds the reggae and new wave inspirations and goes all-out R&B. This is less an affected retro-soul pastiche--like, say, The Return of Bruno--than it is an amusing '80s-centric tribute to black radio.
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Nov 18, 201624K Magic is easily his most cohesive and enjoyable collection, an escapist record that comes by its evocations of the past honestly.
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Nov 23, 2016The new songs--is most diverse set to date, and mostly rigorously executed and fun--show Mr. Mars to be interested in different musical eras, different production approaches and different singing voices without veering into chaos. Mostly his songs are like cotton candy: sweet, sticky, structurally impressive but not especially deep.
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Nov 22, 201624K Magic is his first album that works as a statement, and while it’s unclear if it will see the runaway success Mars has enjoyed in the past, the coherence and variety of the record’s sound and lack of any obvious dud point to the strides that Mars is making as a songwriter.
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Dec 2, 201624K Magic is the rest of the park: rebuilt shinier and glitzier and safer, every element engineered to please more than the real thing, and with a hell of a tour guide. It’s not history, not even historical fiction, but harmless fun.
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Q MagazineDec 13, 2016Ultimately 24k Magic's luxe exterior writes cheques its soul can't cash. [Feb 2017, p.115]
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Nov 28, 2016James Brown is referenced unto pastiche on the crisp Perm, but Finesse and That’s What I Like respectively revisit new jack swing and the young R Kelly with such love that it’s not so much throwback as righteous resurrection.
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Nov 21, 2016Is anything here the equal of Uptown Funk? Not quite, but the opening three songs are excellent party starters. The mid-tempo cuts lack the lustre of the uptempo ones, and the album’s closing ballad--Too Good to Say Goodbye--isn’t as persuasive as When I Was Your Man off Unorthodox Jukebox.
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Nov 18, 2016The album features the strongest set of beats and rhythmic hooks in Mars's canon to date, making it a could-be heir to gratuitous groove records like 1999, Off the Wall, and Remain in Light--if only it were as innovative. Ultimately, the album's magic is a trick everyone already knows.
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Nov 18, 2016While his funk game is strong and swagger is stronger, Bruno's acclaimed hook-writing (which has garnered four Number Ones for himself and tons of co-writes on other chart-toppers) has seemingly taken a backseat.
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Nov 23, 2016There’s scant distinction overall, with Bruno’s eager-beaver personality wearing perilously thin on “That’s What I Like”, a tiresome tick-list of unimaginative hedonism, and “Chunky”, a big-lass anthem lacking even the roguish, cheeky [sic] charm of Sir Mixalot’s “Baby Got Back”.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 270 out of 426
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Mixed: 57 out of 426
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Negative: 99 out of 426
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Nov 18, 2016
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Nov 18, 2016
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Oct 18, 2017