The bass is slapped, our dance shoes are on and the floor is hot and bothered for Mark Ronson’s new release.
Mark Ronson, who once upon a time transformed many dilapidated early nineties New York City dance floors into hip swinging and booty rocking magical bubbly thunderstorms, with golden age hip-hop and funk, as well as smooth R&B and rock, is releasing his fourth studio album, Uptown Funk, on January 17th, 2015.
His first two albums, ‘Here Comes the Fuzz’, and ‘Version’ were not extremely commercially successful, but Ronson’s fame in the world of DJ-ing and producing luckily propelled him forward in the world of music. He formed his own record label, Allido Records, which singed Rhymefest, who is most well known for penning Kanye West’s ‘Jesus Walks’. He won Grammy’s for ‘Producer of the Year’ for his work on Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back to Black’ in February of 2008. ‘Valerie’ won Song of the Year for the Brit Awards, and his producing credit earned him yet more accolades. He has performed Coldplay with Adele, and collaborated with Kaiser Chiefs. He toured his album ‘Version’ extensively during 2008 and had sold out performances at the Hammersmith Apollo and Brixton Academy.
All of this has so far led up to what will be his fourth album, as his third ‘Record Collection’ came out in September of 2010. The album, called ‘Uptown Special’ hearkens back to Ronson’s early days living in New York City, where he first fell for the rhythms of hip-hop that was coming out of Queens at the time, and great R&B; the title track, which you can rock out to below, features the naturally expected and tastefully bassy and syncopated feel of Funkadelic, though it is graced by a recently subversive Bruno Mars, who we havent really heard from since his appearance with the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Superbowl. Since Ronson released his last album came out in 2010, he has produced Rufus Wainwright, Paul McCartney and Bruno Mars.
Bruno Mars is not only guest on the album. Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker sings on a track called “Daffodils” and is instrumentally involved in several other tracks, and has lyric credits on the album. Trombone Shorty and the Dap-Kings are also on the album.
Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson will perform “Uptown Funk” on November 22nd on Saturday Night Live.
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