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Bruno Mars is one of the few figures in pop nearly everyone can agree on. He’s mastered mass appeal with easy-to-enjoy songs, undisputed vocal talent, and overflowing charisma. His four-quadrant, feel-good R&B hits — among them “Just the Way You Are,” “Uptown Funk!”, “That’s What I Like,” and Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open” — are like nice watches: always reliable, stylish yet classic.
But the past six months have exceeded even Mars’s standards, which already included multiple Diamond-selling singles, three Record of the Year Grammys, and one of the longest-running No. 1s in Hot 100 history. His 2024 duet with Lady Gaga, “Die With a Smile,” has been the top-streamed song on Spotify for a record 148 non-consecutive days and counting. It also debuted atop the Billboard Global 200 chart and stayed for eight weeks — only to be interrupted by another Mars duet, “APT.,” with Blackpink’s Rosé. That song allowed Mars to conquer Asia’s often-siloed markets — earning his first No. 1s in South Korea and Japan — and broke the record for most weeks atop the Global Excl. U.S. chart. Between both tracks, Mars closed 2024 as the top artist on the Global 200. By November, he had become Spotify’s top-streamed artist for the first time, dethroning the Weeknd.
The most surprising aspect of Mars’s latest career boost is how counterintuitive his approach has been. On “Smile” and “APT.,” we hear less of him than ever. Rather than putting Mars in the spotlight with his tried-and-true throwback formula, these songs take the lead of their collaborators: “Smile” is a vintage rock ballad recalling Gaga’s late 2010s work on Joanne and A Star Is Born, while “APT.” is a K-pop track interpolating Toni Basil’s “Mickey.” A funk-inflected rap song like Mars’s latest single, “Fat Juicy & Wet,” is more well-trod territory for him, but even there, Sexyy Red is the raunchy ringleader.
What isn’t new for Mars is having a collaborative streak. We may think of him as a front-and-center showman, dancing, belting, and cheesing it up for the cameras. But Mars has prized teamwork throughout his career. He got his start in the production group the Smeezingtons, working with Philip Lawrence and Ari Levine to shepherd hits by Flo Rida and Cee Lo Green. Mars’s breakout as a singer came from singing the hook on songs for rappers B.o.B. and Travie McCoy. His biggest hit, “Uptown Funk!”, was for someone else’s album. Even recently, he chose to follow the runaway success of 24K Magic by working with his friend Anderson .Paak in Silk Sonic.
Bankable stars didn’t always need to collaborate with their peers to succeed. But as streaming continues to segment music consumption, the biggest artists are expanding their footprints by working with artists outside their genre, to get on more playlists and make their songs feel like marquee events. Mars’s own collaborator Lady Gaga has found considerable success on this path. Even Taylor Swift has been collaborating more widely than ever, featuring multiple guests on her recent albums and re-recorded vault tracks. But these team-ups can feel forced or calculated, like Swift’s “Karma” remix with Ice Spice, where the rapper sounded completely out of place. Mars’s collaborations have been the opposite. He’s game to sing in Korean on “APT.” or to commit to Gaga’s bit by covering “California Dreamin’” at the Grammys.
We’ve seen singers use duets to saturate the market as recently as last year, when Post Malone had features on Beyoncé and Swift’s albums, along with his own No. 1 country song, “I Had Some Help,” with Morgan Wallen. But those songs weren’t so disparate from Post’s usual output — Beyoncé’s “Levii’s Jeans” was another straight-up country song in line with his (and her) recent genre pivot, while Swift’s “Fortnight” fell in line with Malone’s pop ballads. That makes Mars’s feat both improbable and impressive. He managed to pull off two completely different-sounding hits: an adult-contemporary rock anthem and a peppy K-pop drinking song. But it’s also a challenge built for Mars. Everything he does look smooth, and that hasn’t stopped yet.
