Bruno Mars Largely Plays It Safe On Comeback Album, "The Romantic"
Bruno Mars' long-awaited new release is easy listening, but it will mainly make you want to listen to his old hits instead.
Before February 27, Bruno Mars hadn’t released a new solo album since 2016. However, he was far from invisible. In 2021, he and Anderson .Paak teamed up for An Evening With Silk Sonic, the funk album that took the world by storm at a time when as few people as possible were spending time outside. In 2024, he collaborated with Lady Gaga and Blackpink’s Rosé for “Die With A Smile” and “APT.,” respectively. To the surprise of no one, both tracks were massive, ubiquitous releases, with the former netting Gaga and Bruno a Grammy win and the latter producing the most nominations for a K-pop act in the history of the award show.
So when he announced that a new album would be releasing in 2026, it didn’t feel quite as much like a grand return as he may have hoped, but it was still a welcome announcement. Especially since the Silk Sonic album produced such excellent results. One misstep notwithstanding, his recent run of singles has been similarly entertaining.
The Romantic is very much a Bruno Mars album. That is to say, there are no songs on the album that are actively bad, though his lyrics may be more clichéd than ever. I did not find myself rushing to skip a song, and the album is a little over 30 minutes in length, so it does not overstay its welcome. The instrumentation is pleasant, the recordings are pristine, and Bruno’s voice has arguably never sounded better.
So much of Bruno’s “thing” has been him paying homage to the 20th century, whether it’s the new jack swing revival on 24K Magic, the disco on Unorthodox Jukebox, or the funk on Silk Sonic. That’s not a bad lane to occupy, but it means that musically, he’s taken very few risks in his career. He’s mostly done what he already knows has worked.
As such, The Romantic is a collection of safe and familiar-sounding songs. And unfortunately, there’s no Anderson .Paak to bounce off of this time as Bruno veers primarily back into the funk and soul throwback lanes over production handled by himself and D’Mile, who also produced that acclaimed collaborative effort.
That is not to say that The Romantic is solely what An Evening With Silk Sonic would have sounded like without Anderson. Opener “Risk It All” is entirely new territory for Bruno, a mariachi-inspired ballad buoyed by a simple acoustic guitar and drums, where Mars croons about “running through a fire” to be by his lover’s side. Between running through fires and catching grenades, it feels as if Bruno may have missed his calling as an esteemed army general. Regardless, the track was a bold choice to start with because of how far removed it feels from anything else in his discography, but it works.
“Cha Cha Cha” pretty much immediately brings the album back into familiar funky territory, and while I do find myself nodding along to this song when it plays, I also think it suffers from having one of Bruno’s worst hooks to date. “Come on and cha-cha-cha with me / And I’ma cha-cha-cha with you tonight / Uh, I like it like that, she workin’ that back / I don’t know how to act,” he sings. Of course, the latter half of the hook is a direct nod to Juvenile and Soulja Slim’s classic track “Slow Motion,” but the earnestness with which Bruno sings it almost causes the track to venture into parody.
On a similar note, lead single “I Just Might” feels like Bruno Mars mocking a Bruno Mars song. After hearing some of the other moments on The Romantic, I think it sticks out even more as a low point in context. “But what good is bеauty if your booty can’t find the beat?” is an eyeroll-inducing lyric, and the hook’s catchiness does not really outweigh the fact that he’s sung some version of it on almost every release for the decade and a half he’s been in the spotlight. There is perhaps no greater example of the continued idea of diminishing returns across this album than just how boring “I Just Might” is relative to his other forays into soul music, even if it’s proven to be another chart-topper for quite possibly the most durable hitmaker of a generation.
“God Was Showing Off” and “On My Soul” are two of the highest points on the album. The former is the sharpest display of Bruno’s vocal mastery on the release, a very straightforward track about how great the woman he’s singing about is. “On My Soul” feels like the song Bruno should’ve led with, a fast-paced Motown-esque track with lyrics about how he’d rather die than break a woman’s heart and that he’s going to love her like she’s never been loved before. It’s a needed jolt of energy after the mid-tempo nature of the preceding tracks (the aforementioned “God Was Showing Off” and “Why You Wanna Fight?”).
“Nothing Left,” the second-to-last cut on the album, feels like the spiritual successor to Bruno’s 2012 track “When I Was Your Man.” “When I Was Your Man” was about a relationship that had already ended, but “Nothing Left” is about a relationship that’s in the process of flaming out. Instead of accepting that it’s over, Bruno attempts to get the two of them to find the spark again. “But the firе don’t burn like it used to, girl, no / Don’t wanna let you go, but you know something’s got to change, got to change,” he says just before the hook.
“Nothing Left” also has the strongest hook on the album. “Feels like I’m, I’m reaching out / With nothing left to hold on to” may not feel like the most elaborate statement in the world, but his voice soars, and it feels way bigger in execution than the lyrics written out in this manner may make it seem. Over the years, I’ve found myself drawn to Bruno’s ballads more than his poppier smash hits, and that is once again the case on this album.
Album closer “Dance With Me” ties everything together with a slow jam. Bruno expresses hope that he and the woman this album is about will one day find love with each other again.
This is not going to turn into a comparison piece, and I know I keep going back to Silk Sonic, but I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that when Anderson .Paak and ex-wife Jae Lin Chang split, the album that followed (2024’s Why Lawd?) was largely quite cynical in nature, though there were moments of acceptance towards the end. If we are to accept The Romantic as Bruno’s breakup album and farewell to longtime girlfriend Jessica Caban, he is much more optimistic about his future love life than Anderson ever showed himself to be on Why Lawd? Poor guys.
Despite my issues with it, I do think The Romantic is ultimately decent easy listening music, with some quality highs. Still, it suffers from some pretty glaring issues. Bruno Mars’ lyrics are the blandest they’ve ever been. The hooks, which, alongside his vocal acrobatics, are usually what we return to his singles for, are the most uninteresting I can remember them being. But even more frustrating than that, this does not offer anything new musically. Save for the opener, these are all ideas Bruno’s put forth in far more compelling ways on previous releases. I’d much rather listen to any of those than the retreads that appear here. If it takes another decade for the next solo release to arrive, I hope the result feels more worth the wait.