On Wednesday night, during Bruno Mars’s new prime-time special, “Bruno Mars: 24K Magic Live at the Apollo,” which aired on CBS, the pop singer periodically darted offstage to be furbished with a fresh set of clothes. Each time, he reappeared looking dewy and renewed. Sweating at the Apollo is its own storied tradition. Perhaps no one before or since has practiced it with quite as much glistening aplomb as James Brown, who, in 1962, recorded “Live at the Apollo,” one of the most profound concert albums ever made, while fully saturating a starched three-piece suit.
Mars is an acolyte of Brown’s, and fits squarely within a daunting R. & B. lineage that also includes Elvis Presley, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, and Prince. Though Mars is arguably one of the most instinctive and enthralling showmen of his generation, his music doesn’t incite the same kind of trembling, near-hysterical reactions from critics as that of his contemporary R. & B. peers—like Beyoncé, say, or Frank Ocean). Though he often receives favorable reviews, Mars still feels, at times, like a curiously undervalued commodity. This imbalance might speak to the enduring critical impulse to exalt suffering, while dismissing humor and levity as lesser arts. Even when Mars is singing about having his heart broken, he is nonetheless mischievous. (He mostly seems to miss the sex.) This can make the work feel trifling.
“Grenade,” from Mars’s first album, “Doo-Wop & Hooligans,” is probably his gravest track. It’s about the excruciating persistence of unrequited love—how a person can turn herself inside out, and still be met with barbarous indifference. “Gave you all I had and you tossed it in the trash,” Mars sings. “Yes, I would die for you, baby, but you won’t do the same.” It’s a sturdy song that builds to a satisfying apogee, a repudiation of his lover’s supposed devotion (“You said you loved me / You’re a liar / ‘Cause you never, ever, ever did,” Mars wails at the end of the bridge). He performs “Grenade” capably, even artfully, but it lacks the fervency of his other singles. His best work is chiefly committed to elevating—if not inciting—carnal pleasures. He reminds us of what it means to feel very good. (I’ll admit that I’ve watched his music videos on a cold bathroom floor, recovering from food poisoning, simply because I knew those clips would provide a shortcut to emotional relief.)
Mars can be something of an inscrutable public figure, which is not to say he is obscure—simply that it’s difficult, sometimes, to figure out the precise shape of his interiority. He is often wearing a silk pajama set, with short pants, and an assortment of impressive gold medallions. When he speaks, he’s jovial and teasing. He has appeared at the Super Bowl halftime show (twice), and as a musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” (three times). He has sold more than a hundred and eighty million singles worldwide. Earlier this week, Mars was nominated for six Grammy awards (he has already won five), including Album, Record, and Song of the Year—the three heftiest categories.
Mars was born in Honolulu, in 1985, as Peter Hernandez. His grandparents are of Puerto Rican, Ashkenazi Jewish, and Filipino descent. He changed his surname in part for all the regular Hollywood reasons (Mars is pithier and more exotic), but also to avoid being pigeonholed as a Latin artist. He moved to Los Angeles when he was seventeen, and was briefly signed to Motown. For years, he wrote and produced for other artists. Then, in 2010, he released his first single, “Just the Way You Are,” which shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and then spent an extraordinary fifty weeks lodged on the chart. In an interview with GQ, in 2013, he described his creative mission simply as the cultivation of dramatic arcs. The bigger, the better: “The music I like are events. Fucking ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is my favorite song—that song’s an event. And that’s what I want to do,” he said. He talked about his songwriting as a kind of metaphysical transmutation, “taking the air and turning it into something.”
At the Apollo, Mars performed with his longtime backing band, the Hooligans. “All I wanna do is have some fun with you,” he crooned. The crowd—which, according to the camera pans, was comprised mostly of very beautiful women—went completely bonkers. Girls were tossing their hair. No one was remaining in her seat. Even if your bedroom vibe is more “threadbare ‘Meat is Murder’ T-shirt that got tossed onto the radiator and might combust at any moment” than the sensual and moneyed pre-coital scenario Mars describes in “Versace on the Floor,” a recent single, the strength of his performance of the song was undeniable. The premise—he’s imploring his date to just undress, already, because certain pleasure awaits them both—would be smarmy if Mars’s delivery weren’t so exquisitely wanting.
During “Versace on the Floor,” Mars was wearing green slacks and a silk Hawaiian-style shirt with leather loafers and no socks. A twenty-five-second dance break afforded him a chance to move freely about the stage, untethered from formal choreography. I do not know how to describe this except to say that after beholding it, a person might feel like they need to sit down and apologize to their partner. “Can you feel it, girl?” Mars asked. “Seems like you’re ready for more.”
During the one-hour special, performance footage was intercut with scenes of Mars and the Hooligans goofing around in the neighborhood. They visited Sylvia’s, Harlem’s famous soul-food emporium. “This is where Obama sat, right here!” Mars exclaimed. Their plates were heaped with mounds of fried chicken, collard greens, and rice. Eventually, he and the Hooligans got up from their meal and performed a cover of “Your Love Keeps Lifting Me (Higher and Higher),” a hit for Jackie Wilson in 1967. Tables of dazed-looking tourists clapped along. Mars, for his part, sounded terrific—his voice is golden, rich, unwavering. “Goodnight!” he hollered before tossing the microphone on the floor and pilfering a drumstick from a nearby table.
Mars closed the Apollo special with “Uptown Funk,” the monstrous hit he co-wrote and co-produced with Mark Ronson (and others), for Ronson’s 2014 album, “Uptown Special.” By now, he was wearing a dark-pink smoking jacket with black trim, and a hat with a little feather in it. Though he has surely performed this song hundreds of times in the three years since it was released, he appeared shocked anew by its grandeur. There is maybe no other Bruno Mars lyric that sums up his gestalt as handily as “Girls hit you, Hallelujah (Woo!),” from the pre-chorus of “Uptown Funk.” Mars sometimes winces as he dances, screwing his face into a kind of elegant grimace. It’s as if he can’t quite believe how excellent it all is.
