ChickSpeak hearts Bruno Mars
Most notably, you’ve heard this newcomer serenading all of us chicks on rapper B.o.B.’s ubiquitous hit “Nothin’ On You,” his contribution to which helped propel the single to its number one spot in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. Just months later, you heard him, and his beautiful acoustic guitar, sharing fantasies with Travie McCoy on the latter’s debut solo single, “Billionaire,” which made it to number three on the Billboard Pop charts. In between these singles, though, you’ve also heard some of the chart-topping tracks he’s penned for the likes of Flo Rida, Ke$ha, Cee-lo Green, Brandy, Adam Levine, and K’naan. So who’s the budding star behind the voice? His name is Bruno Mars and on his debut studio album Doo-Wops & Hooligans, he effortlessly combines modern pop with 50s era soul. The result is pure magic. Mars, born Pete Hernandez, first got his start in his own home, impersonating some of music history’s greatest performers, including Michael Jackson, The Temptations, and Elvis Presley. In fact, it was an impersonation of the King of Rock Roll that got the young Hawaiian tot featured in his local newspaper and eventually a film role, at the ripe old age of seven, in 1992’s Honeymoon in Vegas. Eighteen years later, Mars (whose moniker comes from an early resemblance to Hawaiian wrestler Bruno Sammartino), is still keeping up the act. The Honolulu native took to the Saturday Night Live stage earlier this month adorned in Elvis- esque velvet blue digs, with an appropriately matching bouffant, and blew everyone away with his disarming combination of musical talent and effortless charisma. It’s this same charm that Mars brings to his debut album, and the very same charm that assisted in its debut at number three on the Billboard 200. Mars’s voice is soft but undeniably strong and tender but unwavering in its capabilities. So when he hits notes that would make his contemporaries cower in fear, like those that permeate his first single, the airy and swelling “Just the Way You Are,” there is no trepidation, and more importantly, no reason for any. The ladies’ man has said of his influences, “Growing up in Hawaii made me the man I am. I used to do a lot of shows in Hawaii with my father’s band. Everybody in my family sings, everyone plays instruments. My uncle’s an incredible guitar player, my dad’s an incredible percussionist, my brother’s a great drummer, and he actually plays in our band. I’ve just been surrounded by it.” This perhaps unfair level of genetic talent is best displayed, along with Mars’s vocal prowess, on “Grenade,” a gut-wrenching track about a girl who seems to be the vilest of chicks (”If my body was on fire/Oh, you’d watch me burn down in flames/You said you loved me/But you’re a liar), but who Mars would still “catch a grenade” for. Say it with me now, chicks. Awwwwww. It seems Mars was onto something in the chorus of “Billionaire,” after all. All of us will be seeing his name in shiny lights in no time. Faithlynn Morris would catch a grenade for Bruno Mars any day, even if means fighting off his growing legion of fans.
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