Found yourself wondering what’s kept Bruno Mars busy since 24K Magic and An Evening With Silk Sonic? His first solo album in a decade, The Romantic, offers the only possible answer: trying to combine their throwback sensibilities in ways that sound more like a sad pastiche of his own music than that of his idols. Even if you’re a diehard fan of Mars’ schmaltzy, sleek retrofetishim – which, judging from the success of ‘Die With a Smile’, many people still are – the album comes up short, pulling the rug from under your feet just as it’s supposed to be gaining steam. Despite its non-committal flirtation with Latin pop, it’s as formulaic as it is vacuously archetypal, cashing in on the type of romance that’s as family-friendly as a sunset, which is to be expected from the guy who hopped on Sexxy Red’s ‘Fat Juicy & Wet’ like there was room for interpretation. The only place that matters on The Romantic is the wide-open dancefloor, though only a few of its songs could plausibly make you walk up to it.
1. Risk It All
Charmed by Lady Gaga’s Bruno Mars-less rendition of ‘Die With a Smile’ at the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show? You might develop a soft spot for ‘Risk It All’, whose bolero guitar teases the singer’s short-lived foray into Latin music. The muted horns and strings leave way too much space for his woeful sentimentality, which overshadows his vocal chops. It’s more of a false start than the sound of Bruno Mars taking any kind of musical risk.
2. Cha Cha Cha
Though no less derivative, ‘Cha Cha Cha’ is way more endearing, interpolating Juvenile’s ‘Slow Motion’ with enough playfulness and lightly dazed instrumentation to pull you into its groove. There are some lyrical threads, too: “Say you want the moon, watch me learn to fly” from the opener becomes “Let’s go to the moon a little later/ Hope you ain’t scared to fly.” Sounds to me like he’s flaking.
3. I Just Might
‘I Just Might’ sounds like a facsimile of a Bruno Mars hit – sloppier, stupider, and not even as confident. No matter how hard he flexes his vocals, there’s no tease in his “just might” – he simply may or may not make a move on this girl. Worse than uninteresting, it comes off disinterested.
4. God Was Showing Off
Boasting a stronger hook than most songs on The Romantic, ‘God Was Showing Off’ is also one where Mars seems to be having more fun singing than showcasing his technical prowess. He’s positively delighted by the idea of the Holy Father “flexing up in Heaven” making his love interest, if only because it earns double points for harvesting religious imagery without veering out of family-friendly territory. And it ends by making her sound more like a godly creature herself than a nepo baby, which I think counts as character development.
5. Why You Wanna Fight?
In my decade as a music critic, I don’t think a song has made me cringe as hard as ‘Why You Wanna Fight?’. That final “why” – there’s too many to count – made me want to pull my eyes out. What’s sadder is that it’s still too inconsequential to make anyone start an argument – mission accomplished, I suppose.
6. On My Soul
Here’s a song with a bit more conviction and pazzazz than ‘I Just Might’, buoyed by funky guitars and horns. The celestial journey continues: “Turns out you don’t need a rocket ship, no/ To find your own shooting star.” Sweet pickup line and all, but what happened to that trip to the moon?
7. Something Serious
It’s funny that ‘Something Serious’ is an easy contender for the most laughable song on The Romantic. If you want your relationship to progress to the next level, definitely croon, “Don’t you want some pretty babies?” At this point, he could be singing “I just might make you some babies” and nobody would bat an eye.
8. Nothing Left
What happened here? How did we go from “You should be my boo thang” to “The fire don’t burn like it used to, babe”? Give it to a penultimate ballad to certify the record’s flimsy romanticism, I suppose, not to mention its general lack of inspiration.
9. Dance With Me
It pleases me that The Romantic is over in just over 30 minutes, but that doesn’t make its rushed conclusion any less confounding. It pulls the certain before it’s taken flight, to indulge in its sole metaphor, and when the balladeer throws in the possibility that the couple might just fall in love all over again after dancing one last time, no one could believe him. Realistically, ‘Dance With Me’ could only come on once you’ve danced to a dozen other Bruno Mars songs in the most exhausting wedding party imaginable. Bruno Mars could be singing at your wedding and probably skip ‘Dance With Me’. But he still had to find some way to finish off this middling affair of an album.
