Uptown Special
Mark Ronson
(Columbia)
Four stars
The super-producer Mark Ronson's latest outing has already secured a place among the most talked-about records of the year, thanks to the breakout single Uptown Funk, the Bruno Mars-led feel-good anthem which topped charts on both sides of the Atlantic, clocking 100 million You Tube views and counting.
The album that it's home to, Uptown Special, has been a long time coming – five years have passed since 2010's lukewarm Record Collection.
But Ronson has been no slouch in the interim, producing albums for Duran Duran, Lil Wayne, Rufus Wainwright, Mars and also a couple of tunes for Paul McCartney.
The reason Ronson remains the producer of choice is the peerless reputation he built aping the horn-heavy spirit of 1960s Motown on Amy Winehouse's Back to Black in 2006 and his own star-studded solo Version released the year after.
Where Record Collection channelled the synth sounds of the 1980s, the new album has the ever-on-trend tunesmith looking further back to the 1970s, crafting a meticulously tight set of brazenly retro-referencing funk and disco.
Inevitably, Ronson has pulled out his prized contacts book, calling (somewhat bizarrely) on the services of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon to pen the album's late-night lyrics, while Stevie Wonder turns in a harmonica solo on the ambient opener Uptown's First Finale.
Yet the highlight comes from Keyone Starr, an unknown 23-year-old singer Ronson discovered in the southern United States, who channels Chaka Khan on the irresistible boogie groove of I Can't Lose.
The comparison is no slight – Uptown Special is so enthralled by the sounds of the past that the lines between homage, pastiche and rip-off are bent to breaking point.
Summer Breaking is a slab of dreamy, Isley Brothers' soul-pop (think, Summer Breeze), featuring one of three sweet lead vocals from Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker.
The most clear homage is Feel Right; a straight-out James Brown groove littered with a mic-bursting, cuss-laden rap from Mystikal that's so silly it's hard not to laugh.
There are arguments to be had about whether such wilful appropriation is good for music – pop borrowing from the past is nothing new, but there's a proud honesty about Uptown Special.
The album remains a superbly executed set of infectious funk-pop that it would take a true bore not to enjoy and admire.
[ rgarratt@thenational.ae ]
