CD: Mark Ronson - Uptown Special | reviews, news & interviews
CD: Mark Ronson - Uptown Special
CD: Mark Ronson - Uptown Special
Fourth from New York golden boy DJ-producer is uptown but not top ranking
Musically speaking the mid-1980s stank. The electro-pop blitz and general post-punk aftershock had faded, but the first hints of the rave revolution were years away.
The period reeked of schmoozy, cokey Los Angeles session men playing over-produced jazz-funk with a tinny “rock edge”, to be danced to by UK suburbanites pretending they were Jennifer Beals or, if male, hoping in Mr Byrite suits to be mistaken for Miami police detectives in slip-on loafers. This is what Mark Ronson’s new album – co-created with Kanye/Jay-Z super-producer Jeff Bhasker – sounds like. It even has Stevie Wonder dropping in, perhaps to recreate the vibe from his rightfully relegated-to-history Woman in Red soundtrack.
There are, of course, some juicy pop cuts that belie this description. Prime among them is the chart-topping “Uptown Funk”, featuring Bruno Mars, a golden Chic-meets-Pharrell moment, but also “Feel Right”, featuring Mystikal, a smart James Brown pastiche, and “In Case of Fire” which has a certain lazy yacht rock charm. More often, however, like Stuart Price’s unlovable Zoot Woman project before it, Ronson’s regurgitation of Eighties American FM radio smoothness is simply bland. Tracks such as "Summer Breaking" and "I Can't Lose" are M.O.R. surface sheeny and as slick as a Beverley Hills movie agent on the pull, even if the former does incongruously feature Kevin Parker of Australian psyche-rockers Tame Impala on vocals.
Taken out of context, i.e. without the knowledge that this is the fourth album from a shrewd, well-heeled culture vulture and Amy Winehouse collaborator, these could be mistaken for 21st century rerubs of iffy Kool & the Gang ballads and Hall & Oates off-cuts. It’s possible if you were beachside in the tropics rather than in freezing, sleet-swept, austerity Britain, the whole thing might be more palatable but, even with that in mind, Daft Punk did it first and better.
Overleaf: Watch the video for "Uptown Funk" featuring Bruno Mars
rating
Share this article
Add comment
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
Comments
Music for the "Now" albums
I totally agree, Anonymous,
I totally agree, Anonymous, that there was great music about. Some of my fondest musical memories also date from that period - The Jesus & Mary Chain in their prime, for starters. I should have made clearer that I was really referring to chart pop, to the stuff they played in surburban discos and on daytime Radio 1. That usually reeked!