Mars sometimes conjures up a musical precursor on 24K Magic and builds atop it, like when the smoky music-box vibe of “Versace on the Floor” transitions into a vibrant jungle ballad (it’s like Whitney Houston by way of Miami Sound Machine). Each song on 24K Magic has its share of sparkly entertainment value: the silky pre-choruses of “Chunky” and “That’s What I Like” the manufactured scandal of “Straight Up and Down,” where church harmonies underscore a sex ballad the in-song skit on “Calling All My Lovelies,” where Mars rings a lover and gets Halle Berry’s voicemail (even his pop-culture references are throwbacks). That the song opens straight into its mammoth chorus is further proof that Mars is a sly pop alchemist, and ensuing sections where he leads a call-and-response and coaches dance breaks reveal him to be a charismatic frontman. Given the album’s lack of guest features and boilerplate tearjerker anthems, Mars remains the confident star attraction throughout.Ģ4K Magic starts with the jittering P-funk of its title track, a wash of thick bass, funhouse synths, and Mars’s cocky and scattered delivery.

The album, which clocks in at just over a half an hour, may seem like a logical, even opportunistic stepping stone from “Uptown Funk,” which also mined robotic ‘80s soul, but for Mars it’s nostalgic: This is the music he grew up with and-after years of well-earned, if a bit meandering, mainstream success-has finally grown into. Mars zeroes in on R&B from the mid-‘80s through the early ‘90s, remaining extremely faithful to the era’s themes of money and sex as well as the period’s fat, flattening grooves. Unlike his scattershot debut, Doo-Wops & Hooligans, and 2012’s Unorthodox Jukebox, which tested the singer’s skills in ill-fitting genres like reggae-rock and 1980s hair metal, the nine songs here are surprisingly cohesive. He can take you back to the gym where you had your Valentine’s Day dance, sweaty palms and all-but he can also show you the ways in which the music never left.Bruno Mars’s third album, 24K Magic, is a tidy, if derivative, antidote to today’s overthought, overwrought pop. But for all its fun and personality, what makes 24K Magic interesting is the way Mars manages to capture a moment in the development of R&B before it merged fully with hip-hop-a balance of showmanship, innocence, and sexuality that has defined his style from the beginning. Likewise, his swagger is so goofy as to be charming (“I got a condo in Manhattan,” he sings on “That’s What I Like” “Baby girl, what’s happenin’?!”). Mars’ ear for detail remains impressive: Take, for example, the way a skittering, trap-like hi-hat pattern turns the slow jam of “That’s What I Like” into a synthesis of past and present. With 2016’s 24K Magic, the vision is more deliberate: This is a love letter to ’80s and early-’90s R&B, straight up, from the Zapp-like bounce of “24K Magic” to the silk-brief seduction of “Versace on the Floor,” the callouts to Daisy Dukes and perms to the blocky beats of new jack swing (“Finesse”). Bruno Mars has always borrowed deftly from the past without painting himself into the corner of retro culture, whether it’s ’60s soul, ’70s power ballads, or early-’80s New Wave.

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